


Inspirit

by RaenUE



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence but not graphic enough to justify a full-blown warning, Will cover from a little before Renault's first appearance to his final one, additional characters to be added as they grow out of cameo status - Freeform, cw for brief but somewhat intense gore in a later chapter, minor appearances of Jaffar/Lucius/Leila
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-11-07 22:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17969546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaenUE/pseuds/RaenUE
Summary: Haunted by both his past actions and the incorporeal manifestations of his past victims, Renault heads to Dread Isle.





	1. Reveal; Restrain

Becoming a bishop meant that you would be more closely attuned to the spirits of the deceased. It was part and parcel with a line of work that required you to send off those near death and exorcise the ones that hadn’t made it all the way to the other side, and that would of course ask you to be able to perceive the spirits you work with.

Renault’s understanding of this was that they would be there, as groups of floating, amorphous blobs, and that much was true. Some might appear a little less formless than others, and some might even speak in vague whispers to him, and his own experiences confirmed most of what was in the texts on the subject he had read long ago.

On the other hand, he never expected their voices to be so clear.

_How could you do this to me?_

_I know I wasn’t the best person around, but I saw what you did to that kid we had locked in the wagon! Did she deserve that too!?_

_I trusted you, Renault._

_Oh, so_ **_now_ ** _you can hear me? Thought you were just ignoring us! And now you think you’re some priest? Don’t make me laugh!_

Every moment of his life became filled with the groans, the screams, the sobbing of the millions who died as a result of Nergal’s madness.

Which is to say that every moment of his life was now accompanied by an endless ocean of voices formed from the millions who had died as a direct result of the aid Renault had given to Nergal.

Upon becoming a Bishop, Renault learned that his years of being haunted by his past had been accompanied by a far more literal haunting. In a way, it granted him a small sense of relief since he didn’t feel it was his place to determine how he could atone for what he had done. If they would give him some guidance, then perhaps he could help them move on.

But they didn’t. As if out of spite, they refused to tell him what he could do to put them to rest.

Years and years passed after becoming a bishop, and Renault learned to live with the innumerable spirits that surrounded him. Their words, their taunts, their ghastly wails never ceased, and Renault never allowed himself to ignore them.

He was to blame for them being there, and he couldn’t bring himself to entertain the idea of driving them away through force. It was simply another burden for him to bear.

People gradually had come to avoid him, as despite their inability to see the spirits, the miasma that constantly surrounded Renault was far too thick for their subconscious to ignore. The backwoods cathedral that he had spent over a decade in slowly fell into disrepair as its parishioners and clergy began to seek out other places of worship, but none would dare suggest that he was the source of the indescribable sense of unease that made their skin crawl whenever they were near the cathedral.

He worked so hard for their parish, how could he possibly be the cause of that dreadful feeling that permeated every inch of the church?

 

One day, the voices surrounding Renault became more focused, more unified in their commands.

 _Go to Valor_.

Renault didn’t know what awaited him on the Dread Isle. Perhaps they were sending him to his death, but if that was the will of the chorus of voices that spoke for every life he ruined, who was he to refuse?

 

* * *

 

Valor was infested with morphs, and it soon became clear what Renault was to do.

_Find him._

And yet they forbade him from engaging with the very clear indication that Nergal was somewhere on this island.

_No, not yet._

_Don’t be a fool._

_You’re still weak. You’re either weak in spirit or physically weak, Renault. You’ll never be neither._

_If only you brought a sword, maybe you’d stand a chance._

_You can only kill when you don’t need to, can’t you? How pathetic._

They were right, as they always were. Renault could have brought a sword with him, but he couldn’t stand the idea of putting a weapon back into his hands. He feared he’d lose control again, that instincts he fought hard to suppress would fight their way to the surface and he’d commit yet another atrocity. Renault was nearly certain there were no other people unaffiliated with Nergal on this island, but what if that wasn’t the case? And what about the journey to Dread Isle? He had no choice but to rely on someone to ferry him over here, but what if they had done something innocuous that startled Renault and he reacted before he could think and did something that couldn’t be undone?

And so Renault was now stuck on Dread Isle, surrounded by enemies without a way to defend himself. His victims clearly didn’t want him to die just yet, so he was obligated to do everything in his power to live on their behalf as he worked to discover what it was they wanted him to do.

Renault lacked the mountaineering skills that would let him hide in the mountains from any pegasus knight morphs, and Nergal’s cavalry morphs would be able to flush him out of the forests on the island with ease. Since fleeing was out of the question, his only remaining option was to sneak between the many ruins that lay scattered across the island and hope that Nergal had already exhausted all the reasons he had to investigate them. They would grant shelter from any weather and watchful eyes, and if Renault was lucky he might even find some items that would help with fending off any morphs he caught the eye of. Perhaps one might even give him information on how he should proceed.

And thus Renault darted from ruin to ruin, avoiding the vacant gaze of Nergal’s legions.

Each ruin told a tale of some form. The one closest to where he had made landfall seemed to be a temple that was open to the air, but it was unlike any that he had seen before. The arched entryways into what used to be a courtyard were far larger than needed to accommodate humans, towering well over three stories. Renault would have taken this at face value, but for his current task he’d need to do better than that. While this _could_ have been a temple frequented often enough to require such large entryways to accommodate a large volume of worshippers, a piece of parchment covered in esoteric runes told a different story.

The faded writing was in Ormrtongue, and because of that it seemed that this temple was constructed to allow admittance to dragons. Perhaps the lack of a roof was so those who could fly would have another way to enter the temple, but that struck Renault as a startling lack of etiquette. Maybe dragons cared less about matters like that?

Renault let his mind wander for a moment, having not had much reason lately to contemplate the existence of dragons.

Could dragons have ghosts as well? Would he have to face off against any while he was here? Maybe they were the cause for all the rumors surrounding Dread Isle, about it being haunted?

Or maybe Nergal and his morphs were the source of them…

 

The rhythm of entering, combing through, and then leaving the remains of some civilization that had long since been extinguished -some clearly deserted during The Scouring, some that seemed to have fallen into ruin well before dragons were driven from Elibe- continued for a few weeks. Between the poor weather and the amount of time Renault spent with the sky out of view, it was hard to tell exactly how much time had passed, but Renault figured it couldn’t have been more than a month.

“Would even a single cryptic clue be out of the question? I’ve found bits and pieces of texts here and there, but,” Renault gestured back towards the depths of the ruin he was in the process of exiting, “I doubt you’re interested in having me deliver this thousand-year-old letter informing a dragon who might not even be on this side of the Dragon’s Gate that she owes a shop that no longer exists over 50,000 gold.”

_Why should we make this easy?_

_Yeah, you’re on your own._

_I wonder what that would be if it were adjusted for inflation…_

_Probably still less than this heretic’s body count._

_Dislocate an arm and maybe I’ll give you a hint._

Renault held his arms out in front of himself as he came to a stop, looking at them. He could always stick it back into the socket, but if a morph caught him by surprise he’d be as good as dead. Then again, he still hadn’t found a weapon so it’s not like the temporary loss of an arm would make any real difference.

His left arm would probably more equipped to perform the task of removing an arm from it’s rightful location and then putting it back where it belonged by virtue of being his dominant arm, and his right arm had few redeeming features outside of being a second arm and a second free hand.

Having decided how to do this, Renault gripped the upper bicep on his right arm with his left hand and willed his right shoulder to relax. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain despite knowing that he’d experienced far worse in the past.

“Here goes-”

_Woah, woah, I was kidding!_

The ethereal voice sounded a bit panicked, but Renault couldn’t help but noticed that there was more than a little excitement in its tone.

_You’re no use to us if you can’t do anything! You’re that serious about getting rid of us, huh?_

Renault released his arm, letting out the breath he was holding.

“It’s less about ridding myself of you and more about helping you move on. If you choose to remain by my side after I do whatever it is you want me to, then that’s your choice.”

_‘Whatever’ we want you to do? Don’t forget what you did the last time you followed orders unquestioningly._

Renault frowned as he emerged from this particular temple that sat high in the mountains, knowing exactly what the specter was referring to.

‘I won’t let that happen again,’ Renault thought to himself as he looked back at his hands, this time in disgust, ‘I don’t think I’d ever be able to forget.’

He was here to right that wrong, after all.

 

Renault looked down from his vantage point up in the mountains and immediately ducked back into the darkness of the entryway, his heart pounding.

There was someone on the plains below him, dragging something behind him, and the chances of there being anyone else on the island that wasn’t associated with Nergal were slim to none.

If the man had seen him, he didn’t give any indication, so Renault squinted, trying to make out any details that could tell him something about where Nergal might be. The man was directly to his south, and it seemed like he had come from the woods to the north west and was going around the mountain range to reach the coast through the woods to the northeast.

The man was dragging something, and the way he walked looked a little too natural for him to be a morph. Perhaps he was a specialized one and not a mass produced morph, but his skin was nowhere near as pale as any of the morphs he had seen and Nergal had little reason to create a way to make morphs look less inhuman. They already-

Wait.

That looked like a person. This man was dragging a person. Renault could barely see from this distance, but her eyes were wide open. Renault’s stomach churned and he took a step out of the shadows, but the spirits around him didn’t wait to express their displeasure at his impulsivity.

_It’s too late. There’s nothing anyone can do._

_Did you forget you’re unarmed?_

_He'd be even less armed if **somebody** didn't open their mouth._

_Why bother? It’s not like someone as incompetent as you would be able to heal her even if she was still alive._

_That’s an Ostian spy down there, what makes you think someone who took her down would hold back against you?_

_Aren’t you already intimately familiar with how people who die are always going to stay dead? Or have you yet to give up hope, you monster?_

That last one stung a bit more than usual, but Renault held his tongue.

He deserved this.

Whoever that was down there, being dragged like a sack of bricks? She probably deserved better.

Renault waited for the poor soul -whose spirit he could see contort in pain as its body was treated with such disrespect, even from this distance- to vanish into the woods to the northeast before he left his hiding place.

He wished he could give her a proper burial, but if he died trying to recover her body he wouldn’t even be able to do that. After the next ruin, Renault told himself, he’d see what he could do, but exposing himself to anyone possibly connected to Nergal was far too great a risk.

In not commenting any further on Renault’s path of inaction, the spirits voiced their assent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The name of the language dragons spoke, Ormrtongue, comes from the Old Norse word for ‘snake’, ‘ _ormr_ ’, which is phonetically identical to ‘wyrm’/’worm’ but has the added advantage of giving me material to talk about here.


	2. Remains; Reunite

Shortly after having to remain a bystander to the suffering of that unfortunate girl, Renault’s investigations bore something resembling fruit.

The next ruin showed signs that it had seen some use recently and Renault was compelled both by the voices surrounding him and his own intuition -which he was beginning to lose the ability to tell apart- to investigate it more thoroughly than any of the ruins he had gone through before.

Renault’s lacking magical abilities were still enough to light the lone torch that remained by the entryway at the top of the ziggurat, so he unfastened it from the wall and made his way into the abandoned structure. Its walls reeked of ichor, and it seemed more than plausible that experiments with morphs had occurred here as recently as a few months prior. Each step down the hallway brought Renault further and further into the stagnant, fetid air, and if Renault didn’t know better it seemed like the spirits were being suppressed by something sinister as their taunts and jeers gradually lowered in volume before fading away completely.

After so long, simply floating around him in silence was just as much of a punishment as their words could be.

That eerie disquiet smothered Renault as the hallway he was walking down turned into a staircase, spiraling down deep into the darkness.

Of course, Renault continued on. There wasn’t much else he could do.

 

The stairs continued down for what must have been several stories, putting Renault a fair distance below ground. After what might have been half an hour of descending, the precarious, dust-covered stairs came to an end, leading to a short hallway which then opened up to a massive cavern.

Renault had allowed himself to believe that his sense of wonder had been lost in the many years he had endured, but what awaited him beneath this ruin nearly made him gasp in surprise.

Before him stood the remains of a small village, perhaps 20 acres large, but calling them ‘remains’ was a bit inaccurate. Each building looked as if not a day had passed since they had been constructed; the glass windows were spotless, the etched patterns on the stonework were sharp and unweathered, and the wooden doors looked like they had been cut not even an hour before. Surrounding the town was a cobblestone wall that eventually gave way into the natural basalt of the cavern wall, and unlike quite literally every other village Renault had been in, the door he just emerged from was the sole gap in the wall that encircled the village. In all the town was a far cry from everything else on the island (and the vast majority of settlements in Elibe), but that wasn’t what stood out in this cavern.

No, Renault found himself gazing up at the ceiling of the cavern in awe, beholding what illuminated this village beneath the earth.

From his location on the ground it was difficult to say how the effect was produced, but it was as if he wasn’t underground at all and was instead looking up at the night sky, unobscured by neither trees nor clouds nor mountains. Perhaps it was by some magical mechanism, or gemstones embedded in the ceiling that were refracting light from an unseen source, but every star, every galaxy, every constellation Renault could recognize was right where he expected it to be.

The brightest star in the sky, Rigel, lay to the north shining in a deep blue hue, forming the head of the constellation Ophiuchus, and Al Na’ir, Alkaid, Naos, and Tish -the other four stars that formed the body- were exactly where they should be. Renault couldn’t recall the names for all the stars the that formed Ophiuchus’ limbs as it had been some time since he last studied any astronomy texts, but he could clearly make out Arcturus, Rotanev, Menkib al Nesr and… Core Cannoli, was it?

And yet, despite it seeming like a perfect recreation of the sky, Renault couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss about these stars. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but something seemed… off.

Renault looked at the sky for another long moment before returning his attention to the village that sat below it. While the mystery of why such a structure was made remained, it’s completely possible that it was entirely unrelated to his quest and the only way to learn either way was to hope there was an answer somewhere in this settlement. Renault extinguished his torch and left it by the door to this cavern, and set out for the information he sought.

 

 

Three houses and just as many hours later, Renault found himself with more questions than answers.

The first house was, well, a house. It had a bedroom, a kitchen, a washroom and a few smaller rooms that seemed to be used for storage, but there was nothing particularly remarkable -or, to Renault’s dismay, informative- about it. There were no diaries, no documents, no letters, no books for him to comb through, and while the pantry was bare the residence was otherwise well stocked with the various necessities needed to live a life in comfort. The only particularly noteworthy thing about this house was that everything in it was impossibly clean. There were no fingerprints on the silverware placed on the kitchen table, no smudges on the mirror in the washroom, no dust nor cobwebs hiding away beneath furniture or in far-off corners of the house. The pristine state of the house was a little unnerving, but since it contained nothing of value to him Renault didn’t hesitate to move on to the next house.

The second house was likewise sorely lacking in reading material and things that could be cleaned, yet in stark contrast to the first, the pantry was filled to the brim with food.

_Fresh_ food.

It would be easy to justify the sacks of grain and rice that weren’t rotting, but the fruit? The freshly picked tomatoes and apples and pears? And the untreated meats? The raw steak and the various cuts of pork? There was a pitcher of milk that smelled as if it had been pulled from a cow not even five minutes ago, for eliminessake! Renault knew of no spells that preserved food any longer that curing or smoking or pickling or canning would, and even if such magecraft _did_ exist he couldn’t detect any trace of magic on the provisions in front of him.

That would mean that this food had been placed here recently, but that was just as impossible! This was town was deserted, and given that the only entrance was the one from where Renault had come from and every single step on the way down here had been coated in dust stacked so high that it had probably begun to accumulate well before Renault was born, Renault had to have been the first person to enter this ghost town in a very, very long time.

Had someone used a warp staff to transport this food to a place where nobody would eat it? The amount of magical power needed to transport something this far underground would be tremendous so it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that someone capable of that would also be skilled enough to be able to freely manufacture warp staves, but what incentive would anyone have to use those staves to do something like this? Renault found the idea that this town wasn’t, in fact, deserted and that all the residents were simply hiding out of his sight to be considerably more likely.

The third and penultimate house was just as spotless and just as well stocked as the previous. This house’s pantry seemed to focus more on shellfish and other ocean-related foodstuffs, but beyond that there was a single object worth noting in this house. Above the fireplace sat a painting in an elaborately carved wooden frame. The presence of a painting, let alone a high quality painting like this one, betrayed that while this house -and village- could be called modest, its residents did not want for much.

The painting was of a two-mast merchant ship leaving port, its canvas sails filled with a cool ocean breeze. _The Maria Caelestis’ Maiden Voyage_ , an inscription on the frame read. The name sounded familiar, but when Renault tried to think of where he might have heard of a ship of that name he couldn’t recall anyplace specific. Renault had admittedly spent the majority of his life away from the coast, so perhaps he had read of it in a book somewhere? Then again, his studies hadn’t exactly pointed him anywhere near the general direction of maritime history, so maybe someone he had worked alongside had once brought it up?

“Any guesses on this one, or is uncharted territory for all of you too?”

The spirits didn’t respond, soliciting a shrug from Renault as he moved on to the fourth and final house.

The last house, which sat furthest from the entrance to the cavern, was a bit smaller than the other three houses in the village. It lacked the extra rooms the other houses had used for storage, but it instead had a room that was probably meant to be the owner’s study. The rest of the house had been unremarkable, so Renault wasted no time in turning his attention to the study.

The study was sparsely furnished, having just a desk facing the door with a lantern on it and a chair. The lack of bookshelves stood out to Renault as an odd choice for a study, but the silver lining in that is that it meant he would have less things to read through before he could move on. The first few drawers in the desk contained a surprising amount of stationary and ink, but nothing . The next two were empty, but in the last one he found a diary and a single letter.

Renault started with the diary, but immediately changed his mind; for reasons unknown, the diary was written in Ormrtongue and it would take him some time to translate a book of its length. It would be more efficient for him to read it as he traveled around Valor, but maybe he’d try to decipher a few entries before returning aboveground from this ruin if the letter gave him reason to believe translating the contents of the diary was an urgent matter.

The letter was also in Ormrtongue, but its shorter length made it markedly less overwhelming.

‘Inanna,’ the undated letter read.

‘I wish I could be reaching out to you under better circumstances, but something unfortunate has happened to your sister. Her husband, in his infinite wisdom, refuses to tell me what, but has left me with quite the bothersome task as he sets off to parts unknown to ‘settle this matter’. I have been granted custody of their children, your niece and nephew, and instructed to accompany them through the Dragon’s Gate on Valor in ten days’ time. He has apparently told them that he will be back to retrieve them in a week, but in the (allegedly) unlikely event that he doesn’t return they should follow me to Akanea, where they’ll be able to live safely, away from the war that rages across this continent. If you’d like to see them one last time before we leave, you should meet us there. I’m sure Ninian and Nils would be happy to see another Ice Dragon before I have to rip them away from everything they hold dear.’

‘-Gugalanna’

 

Renault blinked, taking a moment to parse what he had just translated before he wandered back outside into the soft glow of the artificial starry sky.

The letter didn’t seem to have anything to do with Nergal, but if this was a long-abandoned dragon settlement, that might explain some of the mysteries of this village. Renault didn’t know much about dragons -though he probably knew more than most- but he did know enough about them to know there was no reason to underestimate their abilities.

It was an awfully convenient explanation, wasn't it? ‘Dragons are capable of many things, so why not this?’ didn’t _really_ explain anything, but as Renault once again turned his gaze upwards, the events mentioned in the letter slowly began to reconcile with what he had encountered down here below ground.

Renault found himself looking at Corona Etrurilis, a six-star constellation intended to be seen as a crown despite resembling a fishing hook far more than some regal accessory. Unukalhai, Aldebaran, Cervantes, Agastya, Achernar, and Yagalal were all there, but Achernar, the star that was supposed to be the gemstone set in the center of the diadem, was… different. Instead of the deep crimson glow that Renault had known it for, it was a bright blue star that nearly outshone Rigel.

Of all the things for Renault had learned in his role as a priest, this was one of the last things he expected to find use for on the Dread Isle. There was an apocryphal anecdote in an Eliminean text that most denominations considered noncanonical which spoke of how Saint Elimine had come to unite with the other members of the Eight Legends. She had, according to this legend, received a premonition that the keys to ending the ongoing war would be found by following Achernar, which the passage described as _blue,_ and after a week happened across Athos and Bramimond. It seemed that the change in the star’s color from the red that the contemporary Eliminean clergy was familiar with was enough to break their suspension of disbelief, but that part wasn’t what was important to Renault.

If Achernar was a bright blue during The Scouring, then the sky above him was probably constructed around the same time if not earlier, as was the village around him. That would also explain why he was reading a letter written from one dragon to another, as it wouldn’t be unusual for there to be dragons in Elibe before they had been banished to ‘Akanea’. Renault didn’t have any real leads on how the village had remained pristine for a millennia, but his work here was, as far as he was concerned, done.

“Before I leave, any criticism of my deductions here?”

Renault addressed the spirits on the way back to the stairs, and to the surprise of nobody they remained silent.

“I’d hate to have to start talking to myself just to keep myself company, but if you insist…”

Renault grabbed and relit his torch, but hesitated before crossing the threshold between the cavern and the hallway leading to the stairs. Something about him being here felt wrong, something about him investigating this village, about taking this diary with him felt like he was desecrating a grave.

“I… uh… I’m unsure what this place is intended to be. I’m not particularly familiar with how Dragons lived or what they would do when one of their own passed, but if my gut instinct right now is correct and I’ve been encroaching on a burial site… I’m sorry. At this stage it doesn’t mean much, but it wasn’t my intention to do something like that.”

Renault looked back at the last house that he had investigated and let out a bitter laugh.

“I’m sure me saying that despite knowing full well that I won’t be returning this diary probably makes it mean even less. I… I feel, somehow, that it will grant me information that I need to complete my quest.”

He shook his head, letting out another laugh that was this time a bit more melancholic than vitriolic.

“Calling it a quest makes it sound like a noble pursuit, but in the end it’s just me cleaning up my own messes, isn’t it? I’d, er, say some rites or something before I go, but I don’t think many dragons would appreciate an Eliminian ritual…”

A sigh escaped Renault’s lips as he turned his back to the village.

“Again, I’m sorry. If nothing else, I’ll return the book when I’m done with it.”

_Worry not, child of man. Perhaps in sharing our secrets we will guide you towards the business we’ve left unfinished._

The loud, rumbling and unfamiliar unearthly voice from behind him made Renault jump, but when he turned around nothing but the village he was about to leave behind was there.

The faint sensation that he was not alone (or at least less alone than he’s been for the past few weeks, surrounded by so many ghosts) remained, but Renault had no reason to linger here any longer than he already had.

“I can’t make any promises, but what’s the harm in performing another favor for a ghost, even if they’re a dragon?”

 

* * *

 

 

Beyond a single instance where Renault was lost in his own thoughts about that encounter and slipped on a pile of dust, nearly plummeted to an early demise, his ascent up the stairs was uneventful, laborious, and silent. As he neared the surface he began to smell the ichor that stained the walls of the long passageway separating the stairwell and the outside world, and while that pungent aroma gave Renault the drive to pick up the pace so he could end this monotonous ascent as many moments sooner as he could manage, he heard something that made him slow down instead.

Renault couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but he heard _something_ coming from the outside world. The distant cacophony was almost a sure-fire indication that someone was clashing with Nergal’s morphs; morphs had no reason to create noise, so some other party must have been involved.

Right as Renault made it to the landing at the top of the stairs his hair stood on end, the sensation reminding him of a time long ago where he had narrowly avoided a strike from a Bolting tome, and the faraway _boom_ that followed confirmed his suspicions. As unlikely as Renault felt that it was, maybe _someone_ out there had found it within themselves to take a stand against Nergal. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and then passed through the doorway and set off back towards the world beyond this darkness.

Nearly immediately after, from din of the distant conflict emerged the sound of footsteps, prompting Renault to look more intently at the dark passageway that stretched out in front of him.

Someone was coming down the hallway towards him, carrying a light source of their own. The telltale magical blue glow already cast considerable doubt and Renault’s skin had yet to begin to crawl, so he figured there was a significant chance that the individual approaching wasn't a morph. But did that mean it wasn’t a foe? Renault couldn't be sure, especially given that he knew firsthand that Nergal wasn’t above manipulating flesh-and-blood humans. Lacking even the minimal guidance provided by the spirits which haunted him, Renault extinguished his torch and hid himself in the stairwell, hoping the only other person on this island who would go out of their way to explore a structure like this would simply pass him by.

“Hello?” A voice tinged with worry and more than a small amount of fatigue called out from the darkness.

Renault, of course, remained silent.

“I thought I saw a light ahead but-“

The person gasped and Renault tensed, fearing he had been discovered by someone who sought to cause him harm.

Not that he could hold it against them, whoever they may be. All he could do now is loathe his carelessness towards whatever it was that gave his position away.

“Please, on the other side of that door, come out where I can see you! I… I’m-”

Renault stepped out from his hiding place with his hands in the air, doing his best to convey his unarmed state.

“Please, don’t be frightened. I am not your enemy.”

“Huh?”

The woman- no, the young monk before him was surprised to see someone else on the island, and Renault in turn was pleasantly surprised to see what might end up being a friendly face.

“My name is Renault. I’m… on a pilgrimage.”

The pause Renault took to explain himself was surely enough for anyone to figure out that his excuse was disingenuous, but the man before him seemed more occupied with Renault himself to notice.

“A bishop?! I’m sorry! Please forgive me! I didn’t know, but my behavior was…”

Renault stifled a grimace. Being deferred to while at his previous parish made him tremendously uncomfortable, and this reverence coming from a complete stranger made it that much more unbearable. In an attempt to change the topic, he inquired as to why anyone else was on Valor.

“What are you doing here? You don’t appear to be with the dark-robed group I saw earlier.”

“…We are here to fight that group.”

Renault shook his head, unconvinced that they could handle Nergal.

“To fight? Is that what I’ve been hearing out there? There is no reason for one such as you… but if…”

Renault trailed off, wondering if this man was another one of Nergal’s victims.

“It’s for people dear to me… I am protecting someone. Please…Your Excellency, forgive me. I know to fight goes against the teaching of Elimine, but I…”

A sigh escaped Renault’s lips as he conceded that the monk before him wouldn’t accept that the fraud of a bishop before him wouldn’t judge him for what he had come to this island to do.

“I’m sure that I cannot convince you to lay down your arms…”

Renault turned away from the young man and started rummaging through the bag he had hung around his waist.

‘Not that I have any right to criticize the position you’ve found yourself in if you’ve chosen to stand against Nergal. I simply allowed myself to be used by him, and yet…’

Having found the item that he was looking for, he held it out to the other man.

“That being the case, I’ll give you this. Perhaps it will help you.”

The man grabbed the statuette Renault procured, and after a moment of examining it looked back at Renault, confused.

“What is it?”

Renault spared him the reason why he handed him a figurine of a foreign goddess and simply explained the blessing it granted, lest he drag this conversation out any further by entering a theological discussion with such a devout follower of the Saint.

“It may help you live longer. Even if you face the prospect of defeat, it may grant you the luck you need to find another way to live.”

In the low, magic-fueled lighting it was difficult to see for sure, but it looked as if the monk had begun to cry.

“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”

“May the forces of goodness always shine upon you.”

Renault said a quick farewell and retreated back down the stairs before the other man had time to react.

“Thank you. Blessings upon you too, Your-”

The man’s voice became muffled beyond recognition as Renault delved deeper, and after a moment’s rest on the first landing he came across, he relit his torch to find himself face to face with a spirit that -even with its features muddled by the incessant fluctuations of ethereal energy- bore more than passing resemblance to the man he just ran from.

_You’ve changed, Renault._

“I don’t want to make it a habit of speaking to you lot because I don’t believe I could ever say anything that would make ease your suffering, but your tone makes that almost sound like praise.”

_That was my son. The son who watched me die as a result of what you’ve done. I still don’t recall exactly what happened, but… even if you didn’t kill me yourself, you may as well have. It made no difference to Lucius, so it makes no difference to me._

“I’m… It’s far too late for this, but I’m sorry. To both you and your son. I can’t undo what I did, but I can only hope that I’m able to lessen the pain I’ve caused him and everyone else.”

_I’m a bit more inclined to believe that now, at least. You did a good thing, Renault, both in aiding him and in letting me see him again. Years ago you wouldn’t’ve thought of helping a total stranger._

“But a single ‘good thing’ isn’t enough, is it? Not for you-”

Renault let out a bitter laugh as a pained smile crept its way onto his face.

“-and certainly not for me. What do you want me to do next?”

_You’ll have to figure that out on your own._

And with that the spirits fell silent again.

And with that Renault continued his journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take longer than a moment to talk about stars and constellations here because I ended up doing way more research than I intended to for what was originally going to be a single line of text and I didn’t want it to go to waste. All the stars and constellations I talk about exist in real life (Corona Etrurilis is an Elibe-flavored Corona Australis, 'Core Cannoli' is meant to be Cor Caroli; everything else uses something you could shove into a search engine to find the one I'm referring to), but the stars are grabbed from distant parts of the sky and put into constellations they aren't normally included in. If you were to string them together in an attempt to form an actual constellation you wouldn't get a meaningful shape. Probably. I didn't exactly go out of my way to connect _all_ the dots.
> 
> The presence of a village beneath the ruins in the southeast of 18x/19x comes from the conversation with Renault using the generic village background. It stood out to me as a weird thing for them to do deliberately given that there are no remaining human (or dragon) settlements on Dread Isle and that the building he's in doesn't look like it could have a village at the top, so I've always assumed that it was an error and it was meant to use a different background.  
> But it'd be more interesting if it was intended to be like that, wouldn't it? The mystery! The intrigue! ~~The convenience of doing whatever I want and being able to pretend that it's canon compliant!~~
> 
> \-------------
> 
> I had initially intended for this fic to be completed over a period of a few days (my hubris knows no limits) and then moved the goalposts to 'a chapter a week', but now that I've actually stopped to think of what I really want to do with this (for once) I think that committing to and following through on a release schedule isn't necessarily going to let this fic be what I want it to be. I usually write multi-chapter fics over a long period of time and post it all at once, but I want to try posting each chapter as I go both to better pace myself and as a way to make it possible to get input on it as I go. I'll aim for maybe a bit faster than a chapter a month ~~as I'd _like_ to have this done before August, but, again, I'll be going at a pace I'm comfortable with. The final product might be around 30k words~~ (l m a o), and I hope you'll stick around to see it!


	3. Roll; Reconnasiance

By the time Renault made his way back out of the only ruined building he had visited so far that had given him something that looked promising, it seemed like Lucius and the group he was fighting alongside was already long gone, as was most of the remaining daylight. A brief scan of the plains below him showed that while the scars of the fierce battle that had been fought while Renault was busy looting abandoned houses remained on the land, there were no bodies haphazardly strewn across the battlefield.

Unless someone hastily buried the absent corpses somewhere out of his sight, Renault could have some small comfort in knowing that no humans had died in this skirmish. The only casualties seemed to have been Nergal’s morphs, which would crumble to dust when damaged enough for the quintessence trapped within to escape its inhuman prison and return to a form it belonged in.

Renault took a deep breath in, not _exactly_ savoring being able to breathe in fresh air after spending so long inside, but still finding it no less revitalizing. He took a step forward towards the stairs leading down to the ground and soon found himself tumbling down them, having tripped over something placed at the top of the stairs that had escaped his attention, hidden in shadows cast by the setting sun.

After a moment of disorientation and pain from slamming each and every limb of his against hard stone in quick succession, Renault tried to regain control of himself. He curled into a ball to minimize the immediate damage he was causing to his body, though it had the just-as-immediate drawback of causing him to accelerate faster, giving him less time to figure out how he was going to stop. A split second later, after having decided that rolling into the forest surrounding this structure at this speed would be a quick way to get himself killed, Renault twisted his body and quickly untucked his legs, now rolling down the stairs like a log would down a mountain. He then jerked his body so he was sliding down on his back, trying to dig his feet into anything that would slow him down, the continual impacts from each failed attempt threatening to shatter every single one the bones in his legs.

While he had managed to slow down a bit, the end of Renault’s decent was fast approaching and he had no idea how (or if) he could come to a stop in a way that wouldn’t mortally wound him. Renault’s thoughts became a flurry of panicked impulses that tried to get him to do everything at once, ensuring that he’d be distracted long enough that when he hit the ground, he would hit it hard.

And hit it hard he did. Renault’s boots finally found secure footing in the firm dirt at the bottom of the stairs, which served as a pivot and caused him to fly forward and skid across the ground, finally coming to a rest a few inches from a rock that would have easily split his head open if he had gone any further.

Renault spit out the not-so-insignificant amount of soil that had made its way into his mouth and after taking a moment to let his racing heart calm down, he pushed himself to his feet. He looked back up at the peak of the stairs he just experienced in a way he very much wished he hadn’t, and decided to investigate the object that had been placed there between when he had entered the building around midday and now, at sunset.

_I’m almost impressed._

_What happened? I blinked._

_Mister Still-Runs-From-His-Problems forgot how to use stairs._

_Oh darn! I can’t believe I missed that! Do you think you could do it again, Renault?_

“I’m on my way back up there to check what I tripped over, but I make no promises of a repeat performance.”

_You’re no fun…_

“I think we’d both prefer if I were still capable of movement, at least for the time being.”

_I don’t know, I still kind of want to see you rip your arm off._

Renault wasn’t going to honor that comment with a response, and he reached the top of the stairs shortly after.

A small burlap sack sat there on the ground, and while it had moved a bit from when Renault had last interacted with it, it was placed in a way where it seemed like it was trying to communicate that it had been deliberately left behind and not accidentally dropped. After all, what were the chances that someone would drop a bag and it would fall upright, directly in the center of the stairs? Opening it, he found a small note, some provisions and a vulnerary, and a disassembled heal staff.

‘I hope this reaches you well, Sir Bishop,’ the note read, ‘I didn’t catch your name, and didn’t have the chance to give you mine, but I was concerned that you wouldn’t have reliable access to food if you were here on Valor alone. I’ve left you some, as well as a few other things you might find useful. If you are looking to leave Valor soon, we have a boat waiting for us through the forest to the northeast. It will leave within the next few weeks or when we’re finished here, but if you finish with your business before then, flag them down and ask to speak with Fargus. If you show him this letter, he should understand that you’re with us and allow you on board.’

‘Please, stay safe,’

‘-Lucius’

_You’ve got a nice kid, huh?_

_It makes happy to see that. I wish it was under different circumstances, mind you, but he’s grown into a fine man._

Renault sighed, picked up the bag, and started to make his way in the direction of the forest; he had no intention of leaving the Dread Isle, but he still needed to give that young lady a burial.

Lucius clearly didn’t recall that he had met Renault before nor did he remember the context of that meeting, and while that granted Renault some supplies that he had no immediate use for, it pained him that he was being granted charity by someone who had every right to hate him.

But there wasn’t much he could do about it. What merit was there in tearing open old wounds when he might never see Lucius again? What merit was there in tearing open old wounds when Lucius was about to fight Nergal, a task which would require his undivided attention?

“If I ever see him again, hopefully it will be a better time to reconcile with him.”

_Do more than just hope, Renault._

The spirits didn’t need to say that twice.

 

* * *

 

The mist that lightly blanketed the island grew thicker and thicker as Renault entered the forest to the northeast. The air itself became heavy, weighing him down, smothering his uncanny form. His doubts that he would be able to find the young woman’s body grew and grew, but he also knew that he would have plenty of time to locate it.

Renault had been traveling for some time now, and the forest was dark, slowing his movement even further. Between the fog and the unchanging, oppressive darkness, he couldn’t tell how long he had been indulging in this futile exercise but eventually the silence -which was once again accompanied by a din of discouraging comments from the ghosts surrounding him- was broken by the distant, muffled sound of waves making landfall.

Renault had nearly reached the ocean, but had seen neither hide nor hair of the girl he was looking to bury. The direction she was brought in made sense now that he knew where the other group had entered the island, but could he assume that they had found -and buried- her?

No, of course not.

He wasn’t here to perform some halfhearted, lackadaisical atonement.

He was here to make things right.

 

The dense forest thinned along with the fog before becoming a sandy marshland which eventually gave way to a beach. Visibility was significantly higher on the beach as the cool ocean winds blew the mist from the ocean inland -where the uneven terrain caused it to accumulate- and Renault could see the shadow of a ship that had been anchored out on the ocean.

Was that the vessel Lucius’ group had arrived in? It almost certainly was, but having little use for a way off the island at the moment Renault brought his attention back to the shoreline, where the girl’s body likely lay.

The coarse sand beneath Renault’s boots crunched as he walked up and down the beach. Though most people wouldn’t choose to bury someone in the sand given the chance to use actual soil, again, it wasn’t something he had much reason to rule out himself. Traversing the coastline of this small peninsula took maybe half an hour, and in that time Renault could say with certainty that unless significant care was taken to conceal her burial site on this beach, he had passed the young lady he was looking to find.

_Maybe that guy ate her body? To dispose of the evidence and make you waste time, perhaps?_

_That wasn’t something I really wanted to think about, thank you very much! We’re supposed to be torturing Renault, not each other._

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t particularly enjoy that mental image either,” Renault said under his breath, knowing full well that his voice would be as clear as day to the ghosts around him.

He turned back towards the forest, contemplating the likelihood of such an event.

“And for that matter, ghosts with cannibalized corpses tend to be very… loud. If that happened to her, I’d expect we would have found her by now.”

_Oh great, so maybe you’re not just a priest in name._

“I do make an attempt.”

“Hoy!” a voice called out from the ocean, “You with those lords?”

“I was under the impression that you were the ones who knew why I was here.”

The ghosts laughed.

“Ahoy there! You alright old man? You’re talkin’ helluvalot for someone all on his lonesome.”

Renault turned, having not realized that his new companion was someone bound to this world by their own flesh and blood. There was a small boat -probably intended to ferry people back and forth between the ship out on the ocean- maybe 10 meters off from the shore and within it sat a single young man, dressed as if he were here to rob Renault blind.

“Oho, a priest!” the pirate exclaimed, “Are you lost?”

“I’d have to have taken quite the wrong turn to get here, wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, so you are with them!”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m actually here on my own. I was directed by one of their priests -I believe- to come here if I wanted to leave the island, but I think I’ll be staying for a bit longer.”

“Aw, man!” the pirate slapped his thigh, “The boss is gonna have my hide! He was excited to hear that they were back so soon and was looking forward to hearing about their little adventure, and now I’ve gotta tell him he was woken up for nothing.”

“I… er… have some bread with me, if you think that will act as a sufficient peace offering?”

“Don’cha need food too?”

“I do not have much need for rations.”

“You’re one of those …acetics, then? You’re kinda weird, y’know?”

That elicited more laughter from the ghosts.

“The boss might be interested in meeting you.”

“I’m a bit busy…”

_You’re also incredibly boring. C’mon, what’s the harm?_

_Are you really going to comb this beach until midday tomorrow? Maybe they know where she was buried._

_She might have been buried at sea, too! Use your brain, Renault!_

“…But if you can tell me something that speeds up my search, I could probably spare some time.”

“Depends on wha’ca looking for.”

“I believe a young lady was brought to this area maybe… half a day ago? I’d like to try and see if I could make sure she was given a proper burial.”

“Oh, her? Brown hair, blue shirt? Yeah, we saw what went down. Don’t have much good news but I can show you the area where she is now.”

“And I assume you’ll tell me once I return from speaking to your boss?”

“You’re smart!” the pirate laughed, hopping out of the boat, “Here, I’ll move the boat onto the beach so you don’t have to get yourself wet.

“You don’t have to-”

“Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me: that thing about bishops being able walk on water is true?”

Renault stared at the pirate for a moment, incredulous at the fact that there was someone out there willing to suspend their disbelief long enough to even entertain that ridiculous notion.

“…Absolutely not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter this time to keep the length of the next one down. Not much else that needs explaining.


	4. Recollect; Rupture

“The boss is in this cabin. Please, don’t mess this up-”

Renault found himself on a pirate ship moored off the coast of Valor, standing in front of what was ostensibly the captain’s quarters. The man who had ferried him to this boat placed a hand on Renault’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes.

“-for both our sakes.”

Renault nodded and let the man walk off before approaching the door. He placed a hand on the doorknob, but hesitated, not yet turning the weathered, moist copper that sat within his grip.

_Getting cold feet?_

_Are you going to swim back to shore?_

_Come to think of it, do you even need to breathe?_

“If there’s one thing I ask, it’s that you behave while I’m in this room.”

_No promises._

“Did you say something?” The pirate whose name he had yet to learn turned back towards him.

“Just something to prepare myself. It’s not everyday someone like me is granted audience to a pirate captain.”

“Aye… I thought I’d been hearing voices but if it was just a prayer or somethin’ then I guess my hearing ain’t failin’ me yet.”

The pirate shrugged and disappeared into the bowels of the ship, leaving Renault to contemplate his fate on his own.

Renault didn’t know, after all he had encountered on Valor, why this was where his apprehension hit him full force.

_Just open the door._

_What could possibly be on the other side?_

_What could possibly be worse that what you yourself have created?_

“Very well.”

Renault tightened his grip on the doorknob and entered the room.

The captain’s cabin defied all romantic expectations of what a pirate’s dwelling would look like. There was no gold, no gems, no treasure piled high. With its countless naval charts, large table, and a bed shoved to the corner, the room was equipped to function as a room for navigation and where the captain would rest and not for much more. The pragmatism in design of this room betrayed that its single occupant -who was sitting at the table, chipping away at a block of wood with a small knife- lived for more than just personal whimsy.

“I was wondering when you’d come in,” he said, not looking up from carving in his hand which he deftly stabbed at and removed piece after piece of despite the unsteady nature of boats out on the sea, “Vanneck told me he found a priest we hadn’t dropped off and given that I was woken up because _somebody_ thought to announce that we’d be departing already, I figured we might as well chat. We’ve got a telescope that can see through the fog but no enchantment out there can get your crew to check to see if the person they’re grabbing is someone we know.”

The bearded, aging man grumbled, still focusing on the wood he was digging into with a knife. It occurred to Renault that perhaps woodworking was less of an idle hobby for this man and more a way to vent his frustrations, and the ominous request Vanneck had made began to carry a different meaning.

“Er… yes, Vanneck told me you were anticipating their return. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m just a bishop and I‘m unsure if the group that you brought to Valor was the one I had encountered earlier. One of their monks did speak to me and told me to seek out a boat in this direction if I wanted to depart. I was on the beach for other reasons, though; I don’t wish to leave Valor just yet.”

“So you might have seen them? Are they were doing well?”

“I was in one of the ruins at the time so I didn’t see the battle itself, but it seemed there to be no casualties on their side. If it helps identify them, the person I had spoken to was a monk named Lucius.”

“Hmm… I do believe there was a man by that name in their crew. Blonde, looks a bit like a woman half his age, could probably get knocked over by a strong breeze?”

“Er… That’s one way of describing him.”

_I have neither illusions nor insecurities about my son’s appearance. Don’t strain yourself trying to mince your words._

“Vanneck mentioned that you were looking for where they buried that girl? Said that you’d entertain me in exchange for that information.”

“I didn’t exactly agree to that, but-”

“Yeah, yeah,” the captain’s attention continued to be fixated on the wood in his hands, but he was impaling it with a bit more care than he had been using when Renault entered the room, “He knew I wouldn’t be happy and figured you’d be better at finding a way to calm me down. Don’t worry, you’ve already given an idea.”

Renault remained silent, still uneasy with the man in front of him. An idea? He hadn’t said much.

“I’m curious how you were able to tell who suffered casualties when, with the exception of one person, you didn’t know who was on either side.”

Renault’s silence continued, not particularly eager to discuss morphs with someone he didn’t know he could trust.

“I don’t think you’re lying to gain my favor -I’ve been around long enough to pick up on that kind of thing from someone’s tone- but I think there are some things you know that I don’t and I’d like to see that change.”

Renault took in a deep breath, and then let it out. He couldn’t hide the whole truth, but maybe he could play with his cards close to his chest.

“The troops used by the man they fought against don’t leave bodies behind. They aren’t… human.”

“Oh? That’s interesting. My first guess would have been that it had something to do with the ghosts you’ve brought aboard my ship, that they perform reconnaissance for you or something.”

The ghosts whispered amongst themselves at that comment, but Renault was unable to pick up on what was being said or how happy they were at the suggestion that they did anything on Renault’s behalf.

“The druid with Hector and his friends mentioned something along those lines, said it was one of the reasons why he was heading to Dread Isle. He wanted to learn more about them, I hear.”

“You can see -Wait, there’s someone else who knows about morphs?” Renault turned from shocked to downright panicked at the fear that there was someone who could help Nergal, that there was someone out there who might be eager to be exploited by him. His mind began race and-

“Relax. I don’t know what your concerns are, but I wouldn’t worry about it. He made a big fuss about letting it be known that his interest in dark magic was entirely academic, and if he was lying he’s still traveling with a bunch of other people that can keep him in line.”

Renault wasn’t sure if he found that reassuring, but the captain sought to continue the conversation.

“So they’re called morphs?”

Renault paused for a long time, longer than was probably justifiable in any normal, day-to-day speech. Could he really get away with hiding what he knew for much longer?

“Yes.”

The captain stabbed -not chipped at, but wholeheartedly impaled- the wood and then slammed it on the table like it was a mug he was looking to have refilled, and this was a pub and not a ship in the middle of nowhere. For the first time since he entered the room the man looked up at Renault, his eyes angry and his previously mildly annoyed expression now a step away from furious.

“I’m trying to hold a conversation with you and you’re trying to test my patience instead! We may not seem like the kind of pirates who go around a loot and pillage, but we…”

The captain trailed off, his words coming to a stop so he could quite blatantly appraise Renault. His eyes traveled up and down Renault’s body, but eventually his gaze remained focused on Renault’s face.

Renault swallowed as he began to fear the worst. Was this going to be the end? Was this man going to be the one who finally did him in? Was this what the ghosts had been looking to have happen? Was this the end to Renault’s tale that they sought?

The captain continued to stare at Renault.

And then he began to chuckle, which quickly turned into a loud, hearty laugh.

It was not a laugh filled with malice, or a laugh that conveyed that the captain was several cards short of a full deck.

The captain was laughing as if he had heard a particularly funny joke and Renault, as out of his element as he was, could do nothing but stand there in silence.

“Sorry, that was rude of me, wasn’t it? Here I am, asking something of you when I haven’t r’introduced myself!”

Renault tensed up at the use of something that might have been the word ‘reintroduce’. Other than the additional chance to apologize and atone for his actions, nothing good could come from meeting someone he had known in the past. Was this a relative of a victim? Was this a someone he had spared? He couldn’t recall ever meeting someone who looked like this man, so was he just overthinking this?

“The name’s Fargus, but Hugh’s the name you’d probably remember me by, Renault.”

Renault flinched at his name being used, and at seeing that Fargus grinned.

There it was.

Renault had known this man.

Or at the very least this man knew Renault. He couldn’t recall anybody named Hugh, but Renault had left enough of an impression on Fargus for him to remember Renault after so long.

“Right on the mark for me, but there’s no recognition from your end, huh? Can’t say I’m surprised!” Fargus laughed again, “I’m a far cry from the cleric-in-training I was back in Caelin!”

Caelin. Caelin, Caelin, Caelin. Renault _had_ been in Caelin for some time, but he had difficulty remembering any names -or faces- in particular from a relatively peaceful part of his life that had occurred so long ago.

“You _do_ remember, right? You were under Hausen’s employ, as one of the people hired to train his squires, and I was the healer assigned to you and Wallace. You at least remember Wallace, _right_? Despite his build he charged into every battle with such vim and vigor that his foes couldn’t help but pause in shock! I hear he ended up becoming Knight Commander before he retired.”

_Wallace._ Renault remembered Wallace, the young boy was eager to a fault and a bit lacking in physical strength, but his earnest enthusiasm towards bettering himself was his biggest asset and Renault wasn’t surprised he rose through the ranks. Making it to _Knight Commander_ , though? That was a bit of a shock.

Fargus was staring at him, expectantly. Hidden beneath years of traveling the world, of sailing the high seas, Renault could see the desire to learn, the primal urge to _experience_ that drove him on those adventures.

Renault winced, now realizing exactly the person he stood before.

_Conway_. Conway was the boy’s name, not Hugh. He didn’t know why Conway -now Fargus- gave him a false name, but he could now see the resemblance between the kid he knew back in Caelin and the man in front of him now.

He had never been good with children, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for them. Conway was now in his fifties, sure, but Renault could see that the child that approached him with question after question was still there. In looking at Conway, in looking at Fargus, all he could see was the child whose boundless curiosity had gotten himself, Wallace, and Renault into plenty of trouble back in Caelin.

Because of that, Renault couldn’t do this.

“You said that you could tell when people were being dishonest?”

Conway -no, it was Fargus now- blinked.

“Yeah, but-”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m nothing more than a simple priest.”

Renault looked away. He couldn’t justify dragging anyone else into his problems, but he hoped that Conway- that Fargus would see through this blatant lie and maybe put together enough from what Renault had said, from Renault being on Dread Isle alone, from being able to see all the ghosts to realize why Renault didn’t want him involved.

Hoping for forgiveness would be asking too much, but at least he could hope for his intentions to be understood.

“I’m sorry.”

Fargus said nothing.

He sat, staring at Renault for a while.

As usual, Renault felt awful. This was for the best, he told himself, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

The boat swayed back and forth, and beyond the sound of waves slapping against the hull, the night was silent.

“I guess I don’t know you, then.”

It was now Renault’s turn to be surprised, though he did what he could to not show it.

“With that in mind, I feel like there are still things we can talk about, and I’d like to… make a few guesses about why you’re here,” Fargus said with a slight, knowing grin, “Why don’t you sit down?”

Renault did as was requested of him. Fargus seemed entirely unconvinced that Renault was not the Renault that he had known, but he seemed content to play along for now.

“You _are_ named Renault though, right? It’d be inconvenient if I don’t know what to call you.”

“That is indeed my name.”

“Great. I haven’t told my life story in a very long time, so how about we start with that?”

_Oh god._

_Renault, please, consider swimming back to shore._

_Are you trying to find out if ghosts can be bored to death?_

Fargus paused to pick up the piece of wood he had been holding earlier, and resumed talking as he examined the results of his craftmanship.

“As a kid I had been training to become a priest since as early as I can remember. My parents weren’t a part of the clergy themselves, but they had me when they were pretty young and figured it would be a decent way for me to eventually make a living, so they’d left me in the care of a nearby priest and visited me often enough for me to still think of them as parents. Not much of a sob story, huh? My folks were a little distant, but I didn’t have much to complain about.

“Aside from being bored out of my mind, of course. The priest was interested in raising me because I had shown an aptitude for using staves before I could even walk, and while he didn’t work me to the bone there isn’t a whole lot to find fun about studying texts about stuff that might not have ever happened. I know it’s supposed to be figurative, but whoever wrote the stuff must have been terrible at parties.”

Fargus looked back at Renault, remembering that he was, in fact, currently a man of the cloth.

“Probably shouldn’t be saying that to a bishop, should I?”

“I can’t really disagree. I’ve met a few folks who wholeheartedly invested themselves into interpreting the Eliminian texts and I can’t say they struck me as particularly interesting people.”

“Hah! What a pair we make: an unpriestly-priest and a pirate who’s anything but!”

Renault didn’t say anything, and Fargus must have interpreted his lack of a reply as confusion.

“You’ll eventually get what I meant by that, but back to talking about me. So I told this priest about how I wasn’t getting much out of the texts, and how we both knew I was good with a staff, so wasn’t there _something_ else that I could do to get better at being a priest?

“At first he was a bit insulted, because I was pretty much insulting the very foundation of his existence, but he eventually realized that I hadn’t met anyone my age yet and that some socialization would be needed for any young boy to grow up to be a well-adjusted man. Priests have to be friendly and all that, y’know?

“And so he sent me off to work for Hausen. Lord Hausen was more than a little pissed that his request for a healer to fill in for one that was injured was met with a 7-year-old boy who could barely hold a heal stave upright, but eventually he realized that he could train me and one of his kiddos at the same time and we’d be some sort of dynamic duo. Ended up not working out exactly like that, but you’ve got to explain this stuff in the right order, y’know?

“So I ended up getting stuck with this absolute beansprout. I mean, I thought Wallace was younger than me but apparently he was 10? It was my first time meeting any other kids, though, and while Wallace and I initially had a rocky start -mostly because I didn’t know how to hold a conversation- we eventually warmed up to each other. I was amazed by the things that Wallace knew, all the things I hadn’t experienced that he had. He was 10, sure, so he wasn’t some well-traveled explorer or some well-read scholar, but I was 7 and I hadn’t ever left the house! He’d tell me a bunch of stories and facts about things I asked him about, and I think that he came to enjoy being an older brother figure to me.

“Looking back, it was a great idea on Hausen’s part. I mean, the whole point of having a knight on the battlefield is to protect all the people who would get knocked over by a stiff breeze, and Wallace and I ended up getting pretty attached to each other. He’d keep me safe and I’d keep him as unharmed as I could, and that’s the kind of thing that gets people to grow close.”

_Get on with it, old man._

_Is everyone you haven’t killed this self-absorbed?_

_I think I now know the meaning of the phrase ‘justifiable homicide’. Just this once Renault. Just this once, could you, would you?_

“Eventually this merc named Renault entered the picture. Came out of nowhere, asked Hausen if he could train people, and after being impressed by his swordplay Hausen stuck him with us, his own special pet project.

“Renault was great. Looked just like you, actually, but we’ve been over this already,” Fargus said with a shrug, “He was a decent teacher, but if I had been impressed by what Wallace knew, I was amazed by Renault. He kept his past well-guarded, but he knew a lot about the world and was the only person who has ever came close to satiating my curiosity. We kept at it for a while, with him supervising our training for a few years, telling us stories, and all that, but he eventually packed up and left and as far as I know nobody had heard from him since.

“Something that kept him in my mind even after he left was all the rumors that surrounded him. I was a curious little kid and there were just so many questions surrounding him. One knight mentioned that there was a terrifying monster of a mercenary centuries prior that had gone by the same name, and another had said that apparently Renault was actually an Ostian spy aiming to kidnap Hausen’s daughter. Then there were people who described him more along the lines of a demon, of someone _inhuman_ with a blade, of someone whose body bent and moved as he fought in ways that no normal person could hope to accomplish. He’d never acknowledge the rumors or confess to his origins, which only made them run wild.

“A few months after Renault disappeared my parents showed up, pretty unhappy with my current career path. Apparently the priest that was supposed to be taking care of me never got permission for me to be near any sort of active combat and they were _mad_. Hausen was a bit upset that his favorite pair was going to be split up, but he let my parents pull me away from him probably because he could sympathize with the whole ‘I want my kids to be safe’ feeling, what with having a kid of his own and all.

“I was fine with being taken out of combat, but I didn’t want to say goodbye to Wallace. I didn’t want to lose my first friend and he didn’t want to lose me, but Hausen couldn’t come up with an alternative that satisfied my parents and they had to drag me, kicking and screaming, all the way home.

Fargus paused, gazing out the window into the dark fog surrounding the ship.

“In a way, Renault convinced me that there were mysteries out there in the world. I never chased after him because I doubted he’d give me the answers to the things that he kept hidden, but he’s probably the person who steered me in the direction that got me where I am today.

“After I was brought back home, my parents decided they’d raise me like a normal kid, and we ended up moving to Badon pretty shortly after that. My dad managed to inherit a small merchant business from some relative and the idea was that I would eventually take it over once I got old enough, so we packed our bags and set up shop down there.

“Now, Badon is a port city, and you know what port cities have plenty of? _Sailors_. And do you know what sailors have? Lots of stories to tell curious little kids. None of them were quite like Renault, but it took no time for me to decide that I wanted to become a sailor and see the world.

“My parents weren’t super happy with that, but once I turned 17 they decided to let me go on one of the boats that was shipping some of their wares to Illia. Looking back, I think the idea was that I’d get to Illia, see that it was cold and boring and not the magical land that I expected places outside of Lycia to be, and decide that I was fine being a merchant.

“That was a mistake, because Illia had pegasus knights. Horses with wings? People riding horses with wings? What _wouldn’t_ I find novel about that? So I got home and _thanked_ my parents for finally letting me go on an adventure and they nearly fainted with shock! They eventually decided that I could travel around and act as their ‘official liaison’ when selling goods in foreign lands, holding out hope that I’d decide that maybe being a merchant wasn’t so bad, but I loved boats and I loved working on them and I loved living on them, and eventually they gave up and let me do my own thing.

“That was how I packed on all this muscle, actually,” Fargus slapped a hand on his bicep, making a gesture that was _incredibly_ obscene in Bern, “I’d usually be the one carrying the crates around, and everything else I helped out with kept me in shape too. I’ll spare you the gruesome details of it, but I eventually worked my way up to captain of the ship they had a partnership with -this very one, in fact- and decided there wasn’t much reason to _not_ keep working for them. They ended up finding another guy to take over the business for them and I had no complaints as long as he kept giving us work.

“That brings us to maybe 20 years ago. My parents retired and this guy now runs their business. Aside from how they usually make a living, do you know the difference between pirates ships and merchant ships, Renault?”

“Not really.”

“C’mon, give it a guess.”

Renault thought for a moment.

“Merchant ships have to follow a schedule? Or at least a planned route?”

“Exactly!” Fargus leaned forward, happy that Renault understood, “Pirate ships can go wherever they want, whenever they want! They have a reputation for stirring up trouble but I was a captain with a crew that trusted me and if I wanted to follow my whims, nobody could stop me.

“So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past 15 or so years. We still run cargo for the guy who took over the family business and I’d even consider him a friend and all that, but we spend just as much time going on adventures and doing new things.

“Now, pirates do all that looting and pillaging stuff, right? How’d someone who was going to be a priest end up doing that? Short answer is that we don’t. We do go after other pirates if we get the chance, but if we can find whoever their cargo was supposed to get to we do what we can to deliver it. Ends up usually getting us some extra coin and if it doesn’t, we now have some friends in that port that owe us a favor, so it’s a pretty good way to make some connections and a living. We get to do all the fun pirate-y things we could want, but we never have trouble falling asleep at night.

“And now how we ended up here. These two noble kids from Ostia and Pherae came up to me while I was enjoying myself in a pub in Badon and they asked me to take them to Dread Isle. It’s not the kind of place where people would normally go for a day trip, so I was curious to see if they were just rich and dumb or if they had an actual reason to go. Wouldn’t ask them that outright, of course, so I told them to pay me more money than they’d have and they actually went off to go sell some of their stuff and try to make that gold grow in the arena! That told me they were serious about it, so I gave them a challenge they could actually complete instead and they passed with flying colors.

“Something that you- that the other Renault might find interesting is that the two boys had a girl with them. Looked like the splitting image of Hausen’s daughter from way back when, but with some Sacaen blood thrown in. Didn’t seem to take too kindly to us when she found out we were pirates, so I haven’t asked, but there are a lot of people out there and I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t related at all.”

“Perhaps.”

“So, what do you think?”

“About this girl?”

“About my autobiography.”

“Oh. Um. I wouldn’t have expected you to have been someone who might have been a priest, but from what you’ve told me I can understand how one thing lead to another and you eventually became who you are now.”

“Great! So now I’ll make some guesses about you.”

“I can tell my… companions to stay quiet if you’d prefer to not receive any potentially misleading comments.”

_Actually, I kinda want to see how much this guy can figure out._

_You already asked us to be on our best behavior, right?_

“Nah, that’s not a problem. I can’t really see or hear them anyway, but between training to be a priest and after spending so long on the ocean, where many a sailor had met a watery end, I’ve learned to sense when they’re around. That’s the first hint you gave me, actually.”

“It was?”

“I mean, of course. Most priests haven’t done enough to have so many ghosts following them, and while I can’t tell what they’re saying they sure do seem pissed as hell. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so many in once place before, so you must have done something pretty…”

Having noticed Renault wince, Fargus paused.

“Your life must have been pretty different from what it is now. The second hint was knowing about those morphs, and being worried about somebody else wanting to learn about them. So with that, my first guess is that you were at one point involved with the person that our mutual friends are now fighting. Stuff went wrong, people died, and now you’re back here to patch things up and maybe lay a few ghosts to rest while you’re at it.”

Fargus looked to Renault, who quickly looked away in shame.

“Was I close?”

_Don’t leave him hanging._

_Stop running from everything._

_We all know he’s right. Tell him._

_Tell him the truth, Renault._

“Why does he need to know?”

Renault muttered, hoping Fargus didn’t hear but not caring enough to check if he had.

The ghosts only grew louder in response.

_What right do you have to hide these things?_

_He might not be dead but you’ve hurt him too._

_Confess to your sins, Renault._

_Confess._

_Confess._

_Confess.                Confess._

_Confess.       Confess._

_Confess. Confess.        Confess._

_Confess.    Confess.          Confess.       Confess._

_Confess.  Confess.    Confess.   Confess._

_Confess.      Confess.         Confess.        Confess._

_Confess.     Confess.       Confess.         Confess.       Confess._

_Confess.        Confess.  Confess.        Confess.       Confess._

_Confess.  Confess.   Confess. Confess.       Confess._

_Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess. Confess._

The ghosts grew louder, louder, louder. They pressured Renault to confess, they pushed Renault to bare his sins to the man in front of him, they compelled him to admit to all his wrongdoing. Fargus began to panic as things within the cabin began to be disturbed by the ghosts which were now revolving around Renault in a violent spiral and he started to yell something, but Renault couldn’t hear over the sound of the spirits haunting him. Renault couldn’t hear himself think over the growing compulsion to confess.

Eventually Renault broke.

“Enough! ENOUGH!” Renault yelled, standing up, knocking over the chair he was in, frantically looking around at the dense torrent of ghosts that enveloped him, completely clouding his vision, “I did it! I worked with Nergal! I helped him make Morphs, I helped him harvest the Quintessence he needed! I let him make me a morph! So many people died just so I could bring a single person back but it was pointless! Even if it had worked, even if what came back wasn’t a twitching husk, a soulless puppet in the mere shape of a person, there was no point! Too much time had passed, I wasn’t the same person I was a hundred years prior and even if I was could he have forgiven me?! Could he have turned a blind eye to what I had done?! NO! OF COURSE NOT! That’s why I can’t either! I can’t let myself be content with things ending as they are, but does that mean I should involve everyone around me?”

Renault gestured violently towards where he thought Fargus was, his voice becoming strained with exhaustion.

“No! My atonement is mine and mine alone and even if I’m doing it for you I can’t let you goad me into putting other people in danger, I can’t let you let me hurt anyone more than I already have! You know all of this, you know what happened the last time I tried to get someone to help!”

Renault fell to his knees as his yelling quickly became muffled behind his own sobs.

“Is this all you made me come here for? To debase me in front of the one person I haven’t killed? Is that it? Is that the only thing that will satisfy you? For me to truly be alone in the world, as if I haven’t already been since he died? I can’t-”

“You’re not alone.”

Renault’s tirade came to an abrupt halt and it took him a moment to recover from the emotional whiplash. Looking up, he saw Fargus had walked through the ghosts and was now standing above him.

“What?”

Fargus placed a hand on Renault’s shoulder.

“This may be your fight, Renault, but you’re not alone.”

Renault stared at Fargus, then looked away once again.

“I can’t rely on-”

“No, Renault, you know that’s not true. You came here to learn where that girl was buried, didn’t you? Are you that afraid to accept charity? Are you that afraid that it will devalue the work that you’re doing? You’ve done some…” Fargus let out an exhale, as if to say ‘oh boy’, “really bad stuff that I don’t entirely understand, but you’re also trying to fix things, aren’t you? That’s worth _something_ , isn’t it?”

Fargus’ voice was calm, and as he spoke the ghosts slowly became calm as well.

“You don’t get it Conway! You’re still-”

Renault knew he had made a mistake the moment he had said Fargus’ birth name.

Fargus blinked, then smiled.

Again, he let out a small chuckle.

Instead of it being well-meaning, this time it sent a shiver down Renault’s spine.

It was downright sinister.

“Oho? I thought you didn’t know me?” Fargus placed a fist within his other hand and Renault heard the distinct _pop_ of his knuckled resettling, “If you’re really the mercenary I knew way back when, you should be able to survive me pummeling some sense into you.”

Renault flinched, but did nothing to try to stop Fargus.

“Do what you must.”

Renault braced himself for the beating of a lifetime, but the blows never came.

“That’s the problem, Renault. Repentance is an active process and rolling with any punches that come your way isn’t going to fix the problems that you’ve created. You need to constantly work towards doing that, not wallow in your own misery.”

Fargus extended his arm down towards Renault.

_Wow, I’m more convinced he’s a bishop than I am that you are._

_God, you’re so pathetic._

Renault grabbed Fargus’ hand and Fargus pulled him to his feet.

“But-”

Renault’s continued protests were met with a swift hook to the stomach and he fell to the ground.

“Are you done messing around?” Fargus looked down as Renault curled up in pain, his face conveying neither pity nor malice, “Or are you going to ask me the stuff that’ll help you set your course?”

“I-,” Renault grunted, clutching his abdomen as it continued to explode into flavors of agony he had never experienced before, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fargus walked back over to the chair he was in before and sat back down.

“I’ve got all night for you to figure out what information I have that you want. Already agreed to tell you where that girl is, so what other intel do I have in my possession that you might find useful? You need to start putting in some legwork, _Bishop_.”

_He’s right._

_And not the running kind of legwork._

_You’ve done more than enough of that._

Renault had been stabbed before. He had been stabbed many times, in fact, but this felt worse. It felt like his stomach was on fire, like his intestines were trying to tear themselves apart. It felt like he had been poisoned and something was trying to eat its way out of his abdomen at the same time.

“I think-,” Renault moaned in pain, something he hadn’t done in centuries, “I think I’m dying.”

_Oh boy._

Fargus stood up from the table and awkwardly looked down at Renault, it taking a moment to sink in that Renault current state wasn’t the result of his relatively average pain tolerance before he started to rummage through the few places to store things that this room had.

“Uh. We aren’t exactly a hospital ship but I’ll see what I can find.”

“There’s a -ugnnn- a heal stave in my bag.”

Fargus ran over to Renault’s side and reached for the bag he had strapped to his waist.

“Other bag…”

Renault motioned to the sack Lucius had left for him and Fargus promptly began to search through it.

“Oh man, er… it’s been a few years since I’ve had to do anything like this so -of all the-!” Fargus pulled out the gem and the rod that were in the sack, a frantic look on his face as he stood up and ran towards the door, “This isn’t assembled! I’ll be back in a moment; I’ll have one of my men bring us some supplies to-”

Renault grunted in acknowledgment as Fargus’ voice faded away, hoping it was from the man getting too far away and not from his grip on reality slipping.

_If you die I’ll be pissed._

“Don’t plan to but it’s out of my hands at the moment.”

_Shut up and focus on clinging to life, bastard._

It hurt so much, and source of the pain being within his body made it that much worse. It was comparable to when he had been clipped by a shot from Gespenst years ago, but unlike then the pain wasn’t subsiding, the pain wasn’t going away, the pain wasn’t being replaced by numbness in the afflicted area, the pain wasn’t in just one part of his body, the pain wasn’t from something clearly external, the pain wasn’t-

The door slammed open and Renault heard two sets of footsteps enter the room. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes, but it seemed like Fargus was back.

“You were an apothecary right?” Fargus said, straining to not sound panicked, “Help me out with this.”

There was pause after one set of footsteps stopped before Renault and he felt the familiar warmth of a heal stave envelop him, and while the pain didn’t become any less intense, it also stopped getting worse. The other set of footsteps continued on until Renault heard someone dump things onto the table, and moments later a new voice, probably another crewmate, spoke up.

“…The hell’d y’do?”

 “Quit your yappin’ and apply whatever needs to be applied.”

“Yessir…”

“How y’doing, Renault?

“The staff’s -uuruggg- keeping me alive but it’s not doing much else.”

“Is the pain on the outside or inside?” Fargus’ crewmate shouted from over by the table.

“…Inside.”

In truth it was _everywhere_ , but he knew what the apothecary was trying to ask.

“Geez, boss,” the crewman said with a sense of tired amazement, “How’d you give a priest Epityphlitis?”

“I have no idea what the hell that is.”

“How’d you burst this poor guy’s appendix? Hit him really hard in the gut?”

There was a beat before Fargus’ response came.

“Don’t worry about it, Fitz.”

“Hey, buddy!” the crewmate, apparently named Fitz, yelled again, “Are you gonna be able to swallow?”

“Sure.”

“Prop him up, boss. I’m almost done.”

Beyond the pain Renault felt his body move, but he couldn’t feel much beyond that. His sense of direction, his sense of balance, his sense of touch were all dulled by how much it hurt and he hoped something, _anything_ would come and bring his agony to an end.

“Open wide. This won’t taste good but it’ll do the job.”

A hand was placed on the back of Renault’s head and he could feel something being held to his now-parted lips.

“I’ll tilt it back slowly, so don’t choke, okay?”

That got a grunt out of Renault and he felt liquid enter his mouth. Whatever he was drinking was vile in both taste and texture, but it didn’t _hurt_ so he gulped it down like his life depended on it.

For all he knew, for all he cared, it actually did.

He felt it speed down his throat and enter his stomach, the pain in those areas evaporating as the liquid’s effect took hold. It gradually reached his intestines and the pain practically disappeared. It was as if he hadn’t been about to die moments before.

_The marvels of modern medicine are sure amazing, aren’t they?_

_Yeah but did you see what he put into that tincture?_

Renault shook his head as his ability to perceive things slowly returned.

“I’d rather not know what was in that.”

“Hm?” Fitz was already over by the table, packing up the various supplies he had used to make whatever it was Renault had drunk, “Wasn’t planning on sharing. Some things are better left to the imagination.”

“Doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Renault let out a small laugh.

“Guess that means you’re fine now?”

“I suppose so.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to heal your injuries,” Fargus said with a smile from behind Renault, “Just like old times, huh, Renault?”

Fitz looked at the two of them with an eyebrow raised.

“You said you hadn’t held a staff since you came to Badon.”

Renault shrugged.

“Some people age more gracefully than others.”

“And you’re saying that I haven’t? Do you want me to whack you again?”

“Boss,” Fitz groaned, “you’ve gotta stop doing stuff that will get us in trouble with the church!”

“No, no. I… uh… I needed that.”

“…Guess Vanneck was a bit off the mark. You’re more of a masochist than an ascetic.”

Renault wasn’t sure how to correct that misconception or if he should even try.

“So I knocked some sense into you?”

“Yeah, it’s… been a while since I’ve had to fear death, y’know?” Fargus and _especially_ Fitz didn’t know the half of it, but he figured they’d understand the general idea, “And I’d hate to leave things unfinished.”

“Glad to hear! Now-” Fargus pushed himself to his feet and walked back in front of Renault, “let’s see to replacing some of your supplies, giving you the info you needed, and sending you on your way.”

“That won’t be-”

“Renault.”

_Renault._

The ghosts and Fargus spoke in unison.

“I used up your heal stave,” he held it up and, sure enough, all light had faded from the gemstone set into the shaft, “and also did some pretty nasty stuff to your body. If you’d like to swim back to shore be my guest, but this is my boat and I get to set the rules. You’re not getting sent back to Valor empty handed.”

With that, Fargus extended his hand towards Renault once again.

_C’mon, grab all his stuff. It’s not often you get to loot a pirate ship._

Renault looked disapprovingly towards that ghost, and once again allowed Fargus to pull him back to his feet.

“…I won’t accept much more than what you’ve taken from me.”

“You’ll take what I give you. Fitz, you’re heading back to the cargo hold, right? Can you take Renault here with you? I’ll meet up with you in a bit.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

Having packed up all the medicine, Fitz left the cabin and Renault was left with little choice but to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fargus’ ‘birth name’ is based off of the penname of Frederick John Fargus, an author from the 19th century that I’ve never read. Fargus’ backstory is incredibly vaguely based on that of F.J. Fargus’ son, who was a clergyman and then entered the navy (before doing some other stuff, which I’ve chosen to ignore out of convenience). All the other names I came up here with have similar roots.  
> Isn’t Wikipedia wonderful?
> 
> Giving Fargus this backstory was partially me trying to figure out why it is that despite being pirates, Fargus and his crew were so beloved in Badon, and also mostly completely losing control of the direction this story was going in for a couple thousand words. I feel like "was kinda a cleric" is a bit of a stretch, but the intent behind that is so parallels can be drawn to Renault's career progression and also so Renault doesn’t just die on the floor. What Fargus and his crew do now that they’re ‘pirates’ is based off of the whole “we literally never see them do any actual Pirating” and “the people in Badon seem to like them quite a bit” things.
> 
> *gba fe crit sound* _Fargus has given Renault Appendicitis_  
>  A crit from an unarmed (0 mt/27 str on HMM) Fargus would leave Renault (43 hp/15 def) with 7 hp.


	5. Replenish; Retreat

Renault followed the apothecary-turned-pirate out onto the deck and then back into the ship, where the cargo hold awaited them. It was what one might expect a cargo hold on a merchant ship would be, crates and barrels piled into high, organized stacks. Given everything he had learned about Fargus, this was in no way surprising to Renault.

Fitz walked over to an open crate and started to put away the supplies he had used before.

“Unsure what you’re looking for, but feel free to take a peek. We do have a shipment of restore staves that we’ll be unloading in a few ports, but the merchant who’s getting them knows we sometimes face trouble so Fargus will probably be fine with you grabbing a few.”

“I don’t-”

“I get that you’re not super keen on the idea of taking things from Fargus, whatever your relationship to him might have been before, but it’ll go easier for all of us if you just accept whatever he offers. He doesn’t give out freebies very often -he even made the kids we brought here pay for any weapons they needed when they were defending the ship-” Fitz scoffed, “so you must have been someone pretty important if he’s willing to do this for you.”

“I guess that’s not entirely off the mark,” Renault sighed, deciding to look through a nearby crate to kill time until Fargus returned.

He didn’t have to wait long, because Fargus burst into the room not even a minute later.

“Renault, you’ll never going to guess what I have here!”

Renault looked up from the crate he was idly browsing through.

“You’re right.”

“It’s not the answer to all your problems, but it’ll at least be the answer to one of them!”

“Aren’t you two tired?” Fitz yawned, closing the crate he finished returning the medical supplies to, “It’s closer to sunrise than to sunset.”

_This freak doesn’t need sleep just like he doesn’t need food._

“Haven’t I told you this a million times already, Fitz? Ad-”

“Adventure waits for nobody. Yeah, I know, but adventure is going to have to wait for me to wake up in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

Fitz squeezed his way past Fargus and headed off into the darkness beyond the door.

“Hey, I’ll be treating you to something nice as reward for your good performance back there!”

“G’night, boss,” Fitz’s sleepy voice called out from beyond the doorway, and Renault was left alone with Fargus in the cargo hold.

“I’ll cut to the chase, since you’ll probably want to get to sleep soon too. We have a few spare beds if you’d like to rest before you leave.”

“I don’t actually…” Renault paused, hesitating to disclose this information but ultimately deciding that there wasn’t much point after he shared nearly everything else half an hour ago, “This doesn’t need to be repeated, but I don’t sleep anymore. Or eat, for that matter.”

“That part of being a morph?” Fargus walked past Renault and started grabbing stuff out of crates, using his large, muscular chest to shield what was grabbed from Renault’s view, “Or just you not treating yourself like you should?”

“Yeah. I’m…” Renault shuddered, remembering glimpses of the process where he physically lost his humanity, “I’d probably be called a Demi-Morph, since this body started as a human’s and all other Morphs are created from the base materials.”

“That what you called Quintessence?” Fargus continued to grab things from around the room and continued to use his body to hide exactly what he was taking.

“That’s right. I wasn’t exactly… gifted in magic so I didn’t understand a lot of the theory behind it, but Quintessence is the general term for what everything is made out of. To make morphs you’d need Quintessence from-”

Renault caught himself and averted his eyes in shame for what might have been the hundredth time that night.

_Don’t hide from it, Renault._

“It’s not something I should speak of as casually as I was about to, but to make Morphs you use Quintessence from …people.”

“Figured as much. Here,” Fargus walked over to a crate near Renault and placed a bunch of items on top of it, “I thought I’d give you a few hints on how you could proceed.”

A bit put off by Fargus’ apparent lack of concern over the implication that Renault had killed an innumerable amount of people, Renault looked down at the objects placed before him. There were two reasonably sized sacks, two staves -one Restore and one Mend-, and a single Shine tome. Opening the sacks, Renault found one was filled with rations -hard tack and smoked meat-, and the other contained some basic camping supplies, namely a small pot and a set of flint and pyrite.

“Most of these are things I don’t need.”

“Yes, _you_ don’t need them.”

“I suppose that means you’re not expecting your clients to succeed?”

“If you couldn’t defeat Nergal back when you were in Caelin? Probably not.”

“Come to think of it, I don’t think you mentioned their names.”

“Hector, Eliwood, and Lyndis. They’re from Ostia and Pherae, and Lyndis is the one who looks like Madelyn, but I don’t know where she’s from.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised that Nergal went after Lycia, but why’d they send a bunch of kids to retaliate and not any of their knights?”

“Not entirely sure, actually. Apparently Eliwood thought his dad traveled here and they’re on their way to try and bring him back home, but there’s no guarantee he’s even alive given it’d been a month since anyone last saw him.”

“Ah.”

The pieces were starting to fall into place, and Renault started to develop an idea of what he’d be doing next. It wasn’t anything too concrete, but he’d have plenty to keep himself busy with as he translated the diary he had found earlier that day.

“You mentioned you had found something?”

“Right!” Fargus reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object, handing it to Renault, “I completely forgot about this!”

The object that was now in Renault’s hands was a metal cylinder roughly the length and thickness of a finger with a small rod poking out from one end that curled into a loop that one could pull on. It didn’t look particularly dissimilar to one of those ‘slide whistles’ that children would play with, but it lacked any holes to blow into.

Renault stared at it for a few moments before looking back at Fargus.

“I have no idea what this is.”

“It’s part of a set; I have the other part right here,” Fargus pulled out what Renault would have thought was a compass if it weren’t for its needle slowly, steadily spinning around.

“Pull on your part and it’ll point me towards where you are. Can’t remember what these were called but we picked up a bunch in Ilia and have been using them as a way to send signals over long distances. Only real downside is that they’re single use and that that’s our last one, so make sure you don’t use it prematurely. When you’re done with your business on Dread Isle we’ll come and pick you up as soon as we can. The rod should retract automatically once we get close -probably around a day or so's travel by sea- so don't go standing out on the beach waiting for us in the rain for a week.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Is there anything else you need? Or should I find someone to bring you back to Valor?”

Renault picked up the Divine tome and looked at it for a moment before he remembered why he had come to this boat in the first place.

“That’s right, were was that girl buried?”

“She’s right in the middle of the peninsula, roughly halfway between the river and the beach. There should still be a small grave maker, so you won’t have to look very hard. Is that all?”

Renault took the last of the supplies and placed them in the sack that Lucius had given him and secured the two staves to his belt. He picked up the Divine tome, holding the first weapon he had touched since leaving the mainland in his hand for a moment, feeling the heft of the aged leather and many pieces of paper that comprised the tome, and turned to Fargus.

“I think I’m ready to go.”

“Follow me.”

Fargus lead Renault to the deck, where Vanneck was waiting for them by the boat he brought Renault here on. Upon seeing Renault Vanneck’s posture visibly relaxed, clearly under the impression that Fargus had been suitably placated, and Fargus wasted no time in shattering that illusion.

“Don’t think you’re out of the woods just yet, kid. I’m not the kind of captain that takes too kindly to having priests presented to me as sacrifices.”

“…Damn it.”

“You’ll be taking Renault here back to where you picked him up, and then we’re going to have a little chat.”

“Yes sir…” Vanneck looked like he was marching to his doom as he climbed onto the landing boat.

Renault climbed in after him and Fargus placed a hand on the winch that would lower the boat down to the sea.

“Renault?”

“Yeah?”

“Behave yourself.”

“I will.”

Fargus released the winch and allowed the boat to descend, but stopped it before it passed out of his line of sight.

“And don’t give up.”

“…I’ll do my best.”

Although it was nearing sunrise it was still dark out, but Renault could still see Fargus smile at his response.

 

* * *

 

Vanneck dropped Renault off and Renault wished him luck as he rowed the boat back to the ship, and he was once again alone on Valor.

_You should have asked for more food._

Well, he was as alone as he’d ever be.

“I’d like to not startle this girl’s ghost if she hasn’t passed on yet, so would you be able to behave for just a little longer?”

_Ugh. I guess._

_We’re not doing this for you, just to be clear._

Renault found the girl’s grave pretty quickly, as it was a marked with a large piece of driftwood. Carved into it was -presumably- the girl’s name.

“Leila…”

_That’s me._

Renault jumped as the sound of a new ghostly voice came from behind him. He turned to see a spirit in the general shape of the young woman that he was looking for.

_Who are you? I didn’t see you with the Black Fang._

“Is that what Nergal’s calling his troops these days?”

_…_

“I’m Renault, a bishop.”

_You’re not human._

“Yes, I… I worked with Nergal, long ago. Part of that work involved me becoming a Morph, but I’m here now to do what I can to fix the harm that I’ve caused.”

_…I can only hope you’ll succeed._

“As do I,” Renault paused for a moment, “This may be a bit presumptuous of me, but while I’m not much of a priest I could still send you off. Only if you’d like, of course.”

_I’ll pass on passing on. While my soul is still tied to my body, I’d like to remain in this land until I can be sure Nergal has been stopped. About the Black Fang, they’re a guild of thieves based out of Bern that Nergal is partnered with. Most of their members were good people before Nergal got involved, but they’ve been gradually replaced by Morphs._

“Was the man who-”

_The man who killed me? No, Jaffar is a human. Nergal raised him from childhood and he’s a skilled killer. Did you see him?_

“I caught a glimpse of him bringing your body here.”

_Oh, so it was you in that temple._

“Yes, I… I’m not much use in a fight, and I’m not much use as a corpse either.”

_Don’t worry about it. I was already dead, there wasn’t much you could do. Is there anything else you need of me? I’d like to go back to getting whatever rest I can in this form._

“No, I suppose that’s it.”

_It was nice meeting you, Renault. Wish it was under other circumstances._

“Likewise.”

Renault started to walk back towards the general direction of everything else of interest on Valor, but stopped after a few paces. He turned back to the grave and stared at it for a moment, pensive.

“Leila?”

_Yes?_

“I’m sorry for allowing this to happen.”

_People make mistakes. I slipped up and now I’m dead. You’re still alive and all that matters that you’re still going to try to fix the mistakes you’ve made._

Leila’s spirit faded away, though Renault could feel that she was still there and was just no longer visible.

“I’ll do my best.”

Renault remained at Leila’s grave for a moment, watching the sun rise behind Fargus’ ship, but eventually turned his back to both it and the shore. He decided that he’d return to the village where he found that dragon’s diary and see if he could ask a few questions -if the ghost that spoke to him was still there- and after that he’d start making his way towards the center of the island, where he suspected Nergal was based out of.

 

The trip back to that ruin was, quite unsurprisingly, quiet and uneventful, and by the time Renault arrived it was probably an hour past sunrise. He climbed the stairs on the exterior, but the moment he crossed the entryway into the corridor that lead to the stairs down to the village there was a massive, deafening explosion that came from the west.

_The hell was that?_

Renault hadn’t been expecting that, and once again hid himself in the shadows of the entryway, deciding to wait and see what had happened.

Had Hector, Eliwood, and Lyndis succeeded? Had Nergal caused that explosion in a last ditch attempt to take out anyone who triumphed over him?

Ten minutes passed after the explosion before Renault received some answers.

He first saw a few cavaliers rush out of the trees near where Jaffar had come from nearly a full day before, followed shortly after by a couple pegasus knights carrying some knights and then several infantry troops. One of the unmounted travelers, a redheaded young man, seemed to be carrying a dead body, his hair the same shade of crimson as the boy carrying him.

They made their way in the direction of Fargus’ ship and Renault could just barely make out Lucius on the plains below. Right before he entered the dense, foggy forest that stood between him and escape from the island, Lucius stopped and looked back towards where Renault was standing. Renault had taken care to stay within the shadows of the ruin so Lucius didn’t seem to notice him, and he was pushed along by a different redheaded youth before he could second guess if any of the vague shapes he saw at the peak of the ruin were the Bishop he was concerned about.

Renault’s heart sank as he watched the army disappear into the forest.

It seemed like Eliwood found his father.

 

* * *

 

 

The massive explosion woke nearly everyone on the ship, and Fargus had all hands on deck preparing to bring people from shore to the ship and then cast off as soon as possible. He couldn’t help but worry that Renault’s journey ended quicker than he expected it to, but he had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

“Boss!” the pirate manning the crow’s nest yelled, “They’re coming!”

“Is it actually them this time!?”

“I’m sure of it!”

Fargus turned to address his whole crew and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Lower all the landing boats and make for shore! Don’t overload them, but bring as many people in one go as you can!”

His call to action was met with several cries of ‘Aye!’ and the ship sprang to life.

 

With all of the boats they had at their disposal and the help of the Lycians’ two Pegasus Knights, it took only two trips to get everyone from shore to the ship. The moment he learned everyone was on board Fargus gave the call to raise anchor and set sail back to Badon, and if they needed to redirect to another port they could do that once they were a safe distance away from Valor.

He looked towards Eliwood, clutching his father’s dead body, and felt his stomach turn.

“HEY!” Fargus shouted to nobody in particular, “SOMEBODY WAKE FITZ AND HAVE HIM IN MY CABIN IN FIVE MINTUES!”

Fitz was the only person onboard capable of embalming a body, and while the final decision of what would happen to his father’s remains lay in Eliwood’s hands, Fargus wanted to be prepared for whatever the boy needed.

“Excuse me,” a quiet voice asked from behind the captain, “Sir Fargus?”

Fargus turned to find Lucius standing there.

“This isn’t… urgent, but I had run into a bishop on Valor and I was wondering if he made his way here.”

Right, Lucius was the one who had sent Renault in the direction of the boat in the first place.

“Yeah, I spoke with him.”

“Oh, so he’s on board! That’s a relief! I told him that we’d be leaving in a few weeks, maybe, but I wasn’t sure if he made it here already.”

“He’s not with us. We brought him back to Valor.”

“What?” Lucius’ eyes widened in fear, “Why? We… we have to go back and get him! It’s not safe for-”

“Relax. He still had things he needed to do, and he’ll be able to get in touch with me when he’s done.”

Lucius’ panic subsided a bit, lowering in degree to just ‘anxious’.

“So you think he’ll be okay?”

Fargus looked back towards Valor as it disappeared over the horizon.

“Yeah. I think Renault’s going to be just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! That’s the end of the first arc of this story! Don’t have a lot to say about this chapter but I might come back and edit this with my thoughts on the first arc now that I’m done with it once I give myself time to gather my thoughts.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this so far and I hope you look forward to the next chapters!


	6. Repress; Recoil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening the second act of _Inspirit_ , Renault discovers he isn't as alone on Valor has he thought he was.

With little else to do now that he was effectively alone on this island, Renault decided to head back down to the subterranean village.

_Hey you’re almost near the end you should jump it’ll be faster c’mon Renault it’d be fun don’t be a wuss-_

Renault tuned that ghost out and leaned away from the wall, peering down the hole in the center of this spiral staircase. He couldn’t see the bottom, either because his torch left things to be desired as a means of illumination or because he was nowhere near the bottom, but there was a surefire way to verify the ghost’s claim.

Bending down, careful to not lose his balance because there was no railing for him to grab on to, Renault scoured the steps with the little light he had and quickly found a small rock. He picked up the piece of stone that probably had come from the walls lining this shaft and held it over the abyss for a moment before letting it fall.

Renault waited, and waited, and waited, but the sound of stone colliding against stone never came.

“Not a chance.”

_Goddamn it._

_You’re smarter than I gave you credit for._

“…I’m flattered.”

Renault knew that ghost didn’t mean it, but he’d play along for no reason beyond having something to do as he made his way down these stairs.

_You know what? Yeah, you earned that complement._

“Thanks.”

_Hey, I didn’t say you’re allowed to be smug._

“I’m not even sure I can feel that emotion anymore.”

_For real?_

“Why would I lie?”

_Damn, man, that’s hella depressing. I’ll go easy on you for a little bit, friendo._

Renault didn’t know when he had crossed paths with someone with such a distinct way of speaking, but he shrugged it off.

“You really don’t have to do that...”

_Don’t worry, Renault, because I sure won’t let you forget what you’ve done!_

There it was.

“It’s only fair,” Renault sighed, continuing his descent.

 

* * *

 

_You’ve returned, child of man._

The dragon’s voice emanated from all around Renault, who now stood in the center of the village, but he couldn’t see where the ghost itself was. Was it just keeping itself fully incorporeal?

“Yes, I had a few questions, if you’re alright with answering them.”

_Your friends seem to not be in favor of that idea._

“They’re probably less happy with the idea that I’m their friend, but if I ask a question they don’t want answered by you, I’m sure they’ll speak up. Feel free to defer to them.”

The ghosts surrounding Renault had grown quiet to let him speak to the dragon’s ghost, but he had no doubts they’d complain the first chance they got. They glowed a cold ethereal blue, lighting up the area surrounding Renault as they swam through the air.

_If you’ll satisfy my curiosity in turn, I’ll answer whatever questions they permit me to._

“I suppose I should verify one of my assumptions, then, but are you the ghost of a dragon?”

_That is true. Where did you learn to read Ormrtongue?_

“I worked with a druid a long time ago and he needed some ancient dragon texts translated.”

_I suppose I can guess which Druid that was._

“If you know what’s been going on aboveground on Valor, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

_So that’s why you’re… like them._

“Yes…” Renault hesitated, still uncomfortable with admitting what he was, “I’m a morph.”

_No, but not completely._

Renault looked away.

“I don’t see the point in making a distinction.”

_Perhaps, but there are few Morphs that experience the joys and the terrors of free will. To be allowed to do the right thing, but to be allowed to do the wrong thing at the same time; most morphs simply follow instructions. Morphs can’t act independently, but you can make as many choices as you want._

Renault winced.

_Did I strike a nerve?_

“…I’ve done plenty of things of my own free will that I shouldn’t have.”

_Like working with Nergal?_

Renault looked away from the ghost that wasn’t there in shame, but quickly turned back, wanting to be respectful towards… no, he wanted to be honest with the dragon. It felt different when he was speaking to another human, but Renault knew he shouldn’t hide what he had done and with this dragon he felt he could actually follow through.

“Not just working with him… I’m the reason why he can make morphs in the first place.”

_That’s not entirely accurate. He would have-_

The dragon trailed off, but Renault could sense that they were still there. A moment later their voice came back, their tone now urgent and their words hurried.

_Our time here is short. He’s coming and I’m unable to maintain my form in the presence of a ma-_

The dragon’s voice cut out without warning and it took Renault a moment to notice that he could feel its presence gradually weaken.

_The hell is the scaleface talking about?_

“I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t call the only friendly person left on this island slurs.”

Renault was too tired to raise his voice, but he saw no reason to hide his displeasure. He may owe these ghosts more than could ever be repaid, but they had no excuse to be downright vile to anybody but him.

_Sorry, it was uncalle-_

That ghost just as suddenly stopped speaking, and gradually began to fade.

“Am I going deaf?”

The sound of his own voice in his ears answered _that_ question, but what was going on? Was his dismissal of the idea that the spirits were quiet during his last visit due to outside intervention a hasty mistake? Or were the ghosts simply getting more roundabout in their punishments?

“Hello…?”

Renault strained to hear anything over the sound of his quickening breathing, but just as they disappeared completely he could make out a quiet, ghastly voice.

_Hide._

The voice was scared. The ghosts around Renault had never been scared. Renault felt himself involuntarily shiver, not just because of the implications of that but because of _something else_ he couldn’t place. It wasn’t exactly the same as when he was near morphs, but his skin nonetheless crawled as he asked himself the burning question.

Who -or what- would a ghost ever be afraid of?

And so Renault’s mind began to race. If someone was coming, they’d have to be going down the stairs, so he was effectively trapped here, but where could he go? The four eerily pristine houses within the village gave him plenty of places to hide as this visitor went about their business, but what if they came  into the one he chose? The houses weren’t particularly large, and if memory served they all lacked any extraordinarily large containers that Renault could hide in, but was boxing himself in even further going to do him any good?

Every inch of Renault’s body was screaming for him to do _something_ as whoever it was drew closer and closer, and a split second later he came to a decision. He darted behind the house furthest from the stairs and pressed himself up against the wall, out of sight from inside any of the houses and from any place anyone would reasonably be within this constellation-lit cavern.

Renault’s heart pounded as he stood there, feeling _whatever_ _it was_ grow closer and closer. It hovered over him, like a wyvern rider ready to run him through, but when he peeked around the corner and looked toward the stairs, there was nobody there, and from the lack of further illumination it seemed like-

Renault silently cursed, realizing he had left his torch right by the stairs just as he had during his last visit. The displaced dust on the stairs would have indicated to the approaching threat that somebody had come down here, but it wouldn’t be absolute confirmation that Renault was still here. But leaving a torch? Climbing those stairs in the dark would be tantamount to suicide! Sure, he could have brought two and left one here, but why in the world would anybody have been carrying more than one torch?

Renault paused his hurried thoughts and backpedaled a little.

Come to think of it, why hadn’t the dust been disturbed when Renault had first come down here? Was there another entrance to the cavern that allowed somebody to circumvent the stairs?

Renault’s hand hesitantly drifted towards his Divine tome as he pondered those questions and began to worry that his already precarious position was even less safe than he had believed it to be, but found that his means of defending himself, his last resort when it came to survival, had disappeared. The tome itself remained strapped to his belt, but the familiar flow of magic between himself and the book simply wasn’t there.

What in the Saint’s name was going on?

Renault heard a click behind him and his body tensed up like the rigging on a ship. He turned, slowly, away from the corner he was looking around and towards the wall surrounding this underground village.

Nothing happened.

Nothing was there.

Renault couldn’t figure out where the sound had come from.

And then Renault saw it. The stones began to come out from the wall, swinging like a door. It took another moment for Renault to register that it wasn’t _like_ a door, it _was_ a door, and by the time he was able to recover from his shock, it had already opened fully and laid bare the appearance of the person who had opened it.

It was a man wearing a large, well-worn red cloak that covered all but his nose and mouth. His face was scarred and his slightly tanned skin looked eons old, but the thing that stood out the most to Renault, the thing that made him realize immediately that coming down here was a mistake was that, despite the man’s flushed face, despite the natural way he stepped across the threshold, despite the way that he looked up and silently gasped in shock, despite the way he turned to run back through the doorway, Renault knew that the man in front of him was no man.

He was a morph. Just by looking at him, unobstructed by the stone that previously stood between them Renault could feel the condensed Quintessence within the morph’s body as it squirmed around, trying to escape from the shell it was trapped within.

And Renault was about to let him escape.

So he ran down the dimly lit passageway behind the hidden door, chasing after the morph. Renault didn’t know why he couldn’t use magic at the moment, but he couldn’t let Nergal find out he was here just yet. Yes, he had procured a way to defend himself, but he knew that he’d be easily overwhelmed by whatever forces Nergal threw at him, much less by the dark druid himself. The thought made his stomach churn despite knowing his foe wasn’t human, but if push came to shove, he could at least try to physically subdue the morph.

The corridor twisted and turned, turned upwards towards the surface, and eventually Renault began to see bright light up ahead in front of the morph. He had been lucky to not have to round any sharp corners or navigate any branching paths, which allowed him to slowly begin to close the distance between himself and the morph, but out in the open the morph would have the advantage of Renault being momentarily disadvantaged, and if he knew the area then that might just be enough for the morph to slip away.

As the morph burst out into the light with Renault hot on his heels, revealing the interior of a castle, Renault had to pause his train of thought -but not his legs- and ask why the morph was so… human-like. So unlike a morph. Some of the morphs Nergal had made in the time since they had parted that Renault had the displeasure of meeting were clearly designed to infiltrate and integrate into human society for… whatever reason, but they all had lacked the capacity for genuine emotions. With a little notice they could perform whatever was needed for their roles, sadness for a funeral, happiness for a festival, but improvisation was never one of their strengths.

And yet, the slightly opened mouth, the sudden stop and the hesitation as the morph wondered what he should do? As Renault followed him through the twisting corridors and eventually out into the open air, he became firmly convinced that the morph’s shock was entirely real.

As he kept in pursuit of the morph, Renault looked around, trying to figure out where he was. The thickening fog made it difficult to tell for sure, but it seemed like he had emerged from a fortress beyond the mountains to the northwest of the ruin that lead to the village. The morph -and Renault- were now heading in the direction of a ruin a bit further to the northwest, and one Renault hadn’t yet visited. Eliwood, Lyndis, and Hector had fled from somewhere beyond the forest to the east, so this structure probably wasn’t where Nergal had set up shop, but then why was the morph heading straight for it?

As they rounded the corner and ran alongside the south side of the building, Renault was dismayed to learn that the stairs leading to the entrance of this ruin were incredibly steep, and he feared that this would be where he lost the morph.

A moment later, the morph took like a fish to water to the stairs and Renault’s fears were confirmed. He himself wasn’t out of shape, but the way the morph climbed the steps was simply unnatural and Renault knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up.

“Right. A morph doing something that’s not natural. Who would have thought?”

No response came, reminding Renault that for the first time in a very long while his words had no audience, and he began his upward climb in pursuit of the morph. By the time Renault had scaled half the structure, the morph was out of sight, but there was little point in stopping now. Renault suspected that this morph was the reason why he couldn’t use magic and the ghosts were unable to manifest, and if he was correct there was little incentive towards letting the morph run free.

He reached the peak of the stairs and let out a shout as he tripped over something.

Again.

Renault pushed himself to his feet and turned around before jumping back in shock, having realized that he had tripped over a dead body. The deceased was a sage clutching a Bolting tome, and Renault recalled the electricity he had sensed right before he had spoken to Lucius. He placed a hand to the man’s body, but it had long since gone cold. The man’s skin was already that faint yet distinctly disturbing shade of purple that deepened in hue where the skin was thin; it seemed like this was a human ally of Nergal’s who had perished in the battle yesterday, and from where he was located, perched atop this massive stone structure with a Bolting tome in hand, Renault could only guess that he had been tasked in intercepting Eliwood and his friends.

Was he cut down by the youths he was supposed to stop? Or had his poor performance earned him a swift death, perhaps killed by the same assassin that had killed Leila? Renault couldn’t know with the information he had available.

Either way, he was another person lost to Nergal’s ambition.

Another person lost to Renault’s mistakes.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps you would have met a less unfortunate end if I hadn’t…”

Renault trailed off.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

He had no problem in front of a dragon, what difference would a corpse make?

He hated how pathetic he was.

“I’ll be back to bury you. I’m sorry I can’t do it now.”

Renault turned away from the corpse and looked towards the darkened entrance to the building, where he suspected the morph had fled into. There were a few torches, one of which was already lit.

Why would somebody leave a lit torch at the entryway?

Renault’s growing sense of uneasiness caused his hand to move towards his Divine tome, confirming once again that his magic still seemed to be sealed away. Renault basked in the feeling a bit as he untied the lit torch from the wall, counting it as a small blessing since it meant he didn’t have to pause to pull out the fire-starting materials Fargus had given him. It wasn’t like being silenced by a stave, where he physically couldn’t perform the chants required to use magic; it was more along the lines of a limb being paralyzed, or even asleep. The book was there, the magic was there, but Renault just couldn’t get it to move, creating a completely different sensation from the few times he had touched a tome ages ago as a mercenary.

Having spent enough time idle, Renault steeled his nerves and entered the building.

 

Unlike the previous ruin, it was immediately apparent that this one wasn’t a simple corridor leading to a staircase. It was a corridor, sure, but there were rooms along both sides of it and Renault didn’t know if there was anything at the end. Rooms the morph could hide in, rooms Renault had to look in, rooms the morph could flee from while Renault was preoccupied with other rooms.

With a sigh, Renault began his search.

The first room had a few crates and nothing more. The second had just as many crates in addition to several shackles. The third, fourth, and fifth were the same as the second. Crates, shackles, and no morphs.

The sixth was empty save for the heavy stench of iron. Renault was beginning to suspect what this building had been used by Nergal for, and he wished with every fiber of his being that he was wrong.

Had the morph come in here to hide, or was he trying to show Renault something?

If it was to show Renault, was it to intimidate or to have him do something the morph couldn’t?

As he left the sixth room and headed towards the seventh and eighth, the smell intensified, and Renault discovered that unless this building also had incredibly inconvenient (for Renault) and completely undetectable secret passages, the corridor ended after the entrances to the seventh and eighth rooms.

The seventh room downright reeked of iron, and waving his torch around revealed to Renault why that was.

Whoever oversaw whatever this building was once used for may have removed all the equipment -whatever it may have been- from this room, but they didn’t bother to clean up the blood that formed layers upon layers of rust-colored crust that caked the walls.

In an attempt to avoid vomiting, Renault quickly stepped outside of the room and back into the corridor, satisfied enough by his split-second appraisal of that room being lacking in its population of morphs.

It was such a horrid sight to behold, but at least this was absolute confirmation that he wasn’t the person he used to be.

“Disgusting… thinking about yourself after seeing something like that.”

_thud_

Renault froze.

That sound had come from the eighth room, the only one he hadn’t been in yet. The door to it was shut and the light from his torch couldn’t reach into it, but the sound of his voice had clearly alerted the room’s occupant that they weren’t alone.

Renault hesitated.

Who -or what- was behind the door? Was he prepared to face it? Was it the morph, or something else?

Renault’s hand drifted back to the Divine tome, which remained as unusable as it had been for the past hour and a half.

He took a deep breath. If the morph was in there, he wouldn’t regain use of his magic until it was gone. If the morph wasn’t in there, it’d probably take the chance to escape and Renault might regain use of his magic in time to face whoever lay in wait within.

If he waited, nothing would change. If he waited, his position wouldn’t improve.

Nothing would ever improve as Renault sat by and did nothing.

And so he opened the door. Slowly, light poured into the room as the door moved out of the way, revealing a crates, more shackles, another crate, even more shackles, and a shape that looked to be-

A burst of motion leapt towards Renault and he was knocked to the ground, his torch escaping his grasp. The light source tumbled away, extinguishing itself as it rolled through the dirt that covered the floor, but for the briefest of moments he caught a glimpse of a blond man with an absolutely bestial look in his eyes. A look in his eyes that made it clear he was out to kill as he pinned Renault down and began to throw his fists down at the bishop.

Renault raised his arms to protect his head from whatever blows he could block. Was this man under the effects of a Berserk staff? Or-

Renault’s question was answered as the man began to speak.

“I’LL KILL YOU NERGAL! I’LL KILL YOU AND EVERY LAST ONE OF YOUR SERVANTS! I’LL DESTROY YOU, YOU DASTARD! I’LL-”

The assailant’s voice sputtered as quickly as it had started before he coughed once, then twice, then again and again and again and Renault felt something wet and warm and viscous splatter against his hands and face as the man fell off of him and curled up on the floor, groaning in pain between coughs.

It was blood.

His attacker, who was _clearly_ not an ally of Nergal, was coughing up blood.

Renault’s hand instinctively unbuckled the Mend stave from his belt and raised it up, halfway through the chant needed to use it before he remembered that his magic was sealed and then another moment passed before realized that he could once again feel the distinct motion of magic flowing from his body and into the stave.

The morph was gone, but Renault had more important matters to attend to and he continued the chant.

The blue glow from the Mend staff moved to the man now on the ground, the violent tremors causing his body to contort in pain weakening as his body began to heal.

“Why… who-”

The man began to cough again and Renault began to suspect his injuries were from more than just physical -and emotional- trauma.

“Were you poisoned?”

The man did his best to nod, and Renault got to work.

“I’m not with Nergal. Please, we can talk once you recover.”

Renault said what he could to reassure the man in the little time it took for him to swap the Mend stave for the Restore stave forced upon him by Fargus, and held it towards the man. The chant was quick, and while the man continued to cough the wetness of each hack began to fade away as the poison was removed from his body. Renault then switched back to the Mend stave and healed whatever remained of the man’s wounds.

“Why?”

The man’s voice was ragged as he shifted into another position on the ground.

“I’m on Valor to help people who Nergal has hurt.”

Renault walked over to where the torch had fallen and picked it up, turning back to where the man was before he lit the torch. The moment light began to illuminate the corridor, the ghosts which were no longer being forced away by that morph chose to reappear, though they remained quiet, observing, judging Renault.

“And besides, as a priest it wouldn’t do for me to just let somebody suffer.”

Renault walked over to the man, the light of the torch slowly revealing that the feral look in his eyes had been replaced by one of utter defeat.

Renault knew that look.

Renault had lived that look.

He bent down and extended his hand towards the man.

“My name is Renault. What’s yours?”

The man hesitated, both to respond and to accept Renault’s offer of assistance.

It felt like several minutes passed before he grabbed Renault’s hand and Renault was able to pull him to his feet. The man was unsteady at first, and Renault did what he could to hold the man up as he found his balance.

“Harken.”

“Let’s get you out of here, Harken.”

_You handled that well, Renault._

With another human here, he couldn’t just reply to his ghostly entourage, but he was almost able to smile.

Maybe, for once, he’d be able to do something other than continue to hurt people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's amazing how much easier it is to write things when you plan things out ~~and then completely ignore every plan you made~~.
> 
> Anyway! I'm excited about writing this act! When I started _Inspirit_ this section was going to be mostly filler between the first and the final act, but now that I know what I want to do with it I'm glad that I completely ignored my initial impulse to not take my time with this fic! Thanks for reading and I hope you look forward to the next few chapters!


	7. Release; Recross

With another person in his care, Renault was now placed into a predicament. As a demimorph he had little need for rest or food, but Harken, who had (hopefully) seen better days, didn’t have the lamentable luxuries Renault’s body provided him. He had the rations in his pack that Fargus had given him, and he could boil whatever water he found with the small pot he had, but the rations would run out and the water would require leaving Harken alone for a period of time as he recovered and that in turn would require some place where he’d be sheltered from the elements and anyone in league with Nergal.

As they approached the entrance, Renault helping Harken walk every step of the way, it occurred to him that he had made a major oversight.

“Do you need food?”

Harken looked up at Renault wearily. The energy from not five minutes before was gone, replaced with a tiredness Renault knew all too well. He nodded, slowly.

“Let’s get you seated, then.”

Renault brought him over to the wall and lowered him gently to the floor. He began to rummage through his bag, looking for the food stored within.

“It’s nothing fancy, but I have some smoked meat and hardtack. I don’t have any water on hand, so maybe just the meat for now?”

He held out the sack with the food, and Harken opened it. He slowly took out a piece of meat, examined it, and took a small bite.

It seemed like he had yet to gain Harken’s trust, and given the few things Renault could piece together of what had happened here, he wouldn’t in a million years have thought that to be unreasonable. In going over what could had happened, Renault recalled something he had nearly forgotten.

The corpse out front.

If he was associated with Nergal, he might have been the one responsible for what had happened here. Harken… didn’t need to experience any reminders of that. But as Renault watched Harken nibble at the food he was given, what might have been the first food he had eaten in weeks, he wondered how he should go about justifying whatever means he applied to avoid Harken having to see it. Should he be honest? Should he be vague? Should he tell Harken to just… close his eyes?

“Harken, would you be alright if I left you alone for a little bit? There was… something out front that I think you’d appreciate not having to see.”

“Was anybody else left?”

Harken’s voice was quiet and his lip trembled in the low lighting.

“Every room was empty,” Renault looked away, “I’m sorry, Harken. If you’d like to be alone for a while, I can return a little-”

Harken put down the sack of food and wrapped his arms around his legs, bringing his head close to his knees as he curled up into a ball.

“Do whatever you want.”

Renault attached the torch in his hand to one of the sconces along the wall so Harken wouldn’t be in the dark, and walked toward the exit. It was dark without a torch, but the ground was even and Renault had no problems navigating the relatively short distance between where he had left Harken and the exit.

He felt his stomach turn over as it set in that there was nothing he could do to help Harken.

He had been presumptuous in thinking he could relieve anybody’s suffering.

Arrogant, even.

He didn’t need the ghosts to tell him that. He knew it all too well.

_You’re not going to give up, are you? It won’t ever be easy, but you’re far from done._

“No,” Renault whispered as he left the darkness of the ruins and stood underneath the overcast afternoon sky, “I should take responsibility. As always. Even if I fail, I have a duty to do better.”

_OH! IT’S ABOUT TIME!_

A new ghost, one tethered to the body he was about to bury, shouted as if he were a king being denied dinner.

_DON’T THINK I DIDN’T SEE YOU WALK PAST ME WHILE THAT ACCURSED MAGIC SEAL HAD ME INCORPOREAL! LORD NERGAL ISN’T GOING TO BE HAPPY WHEN HE HEARS YOU TOOK YOUR TIME BURYING ME!_

Renault looked forward at the ghost, and then down at the ghost’s body.

“My apologies, he wanted me to check on how well the cleanup had progressed.”

_Hmpf! I guess I can excuse that. You’re pretty talkative for just a morph, though._

“Oh, am I?”

Renault grimaced, hoisting the sage’s limp body over his shoulder and starting down the stairs. It was an unpleasant misunderstanding, but he might be able to get some useful information out of it.

_Most of them say preset phrases, but if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were a human. The only ones that he bothered giving the capacity for thought were Ephidel, Limstella, and that wench, Sonia. And that magic seal. Honestly, I don’t know why Nergal lets him run around._

“I see.”

Renault was quiet for the rest of the journey down the stairs as he contemplated why Nergal would have limited himself to just four ‘refined’ morphs, one of whom might not even have any sort of allegiance to him. The man began to ramble on about why he was even bothering to talk to a morph, how he was wasting his time and how Renault in being a morph didn’t _really_ understand what the man was saying, and as Renault neared the bottom of the ruins he spied a shovel that hadn’t been there when he had entered the ruin.

Had the morph from before -the magic seal this man seemed to hate with a burning passion- left it there? If he had, had Renault finding Harken been part of his plan? Once again, Renault had even more questions to worry about answering.

Renault decided to bury this man on the west side of the ruin, so he placed the man’s body on the ground, retrieved the shovel, and began to dig a grave for the man.

The dirt was somewhat damp from the continual fog that plagued this island, but Renault found himself fortunate that the ground he had to heft wasn’t waterlogged and weighed down significantly. It was the perfect balance of soft, spongy soil and light, dry dirt and before Renault knew it, the shallow grave was complete.

Once he was done, too tired to lift the body, Renault rolled it into the hole in the ground.

_HEY! Be careful with my body! Nergal won’t be able to revive me if I’m too damaged!_

Renault looked down at the body in the grave, melancholic.

“I made the mistake of believing that once.”

_What?!_

The ghost’s arrogant tone quickly turned to shock with a hint of fear as Renault began to cover his body in dirt.

“Quintessence needs to be harvested at the moment of death to be used to create a morph in somebody’s image without prohibitively costly effort and resources. I can taste what lingers of yours and unless you’re someone who he’d need a mindless puppet to imitate, he’d never bother to recreate you.”

_Lies! Nergal has recognized my genius!_

“And either way, it wouldn’t be you. No matter how much it looks like you, talks like you, acts like you, death remains a one-way road.”

_You don’t know-_

“I know more than you could possibly imagine, I know parts of Nergal that you could never dream of being able to comprehend. I’m sorry that this was the path that I had sent you down,” Renault sighed, “Perhaps is either of us hadn’t listened to his honeyed words you’d still be alive today.”

_You’re not-_

“No, I’m not a morph. I’m little more than a fool who discarded his humanity in pursuit of things he could never regain.”

_Oh, gods have mercy! I- You! You’re still an actual priest, like that Kenneth freak, right?! Send me off! Send me off! You have to do it if I ask you to! Send me off!!!_

Having been granted permission, Renault was glad to finish the job he had left Harken to perform. He took a moment to focus his mind, directing the magic within him towards the ghost, and got to work.

“O Blessed Saint, grant this weary, unfortunate soul the rest it seeks, grant it freedom to escape from its prison of flesh, of its ties to this plane, and allow it to move on to the next.”

The man’s ghost began to dissipate into the air, like the lingering smoke from an extinguished campfire, drifting away into the sky, into parts unknown.

_I don’t want to die…_

“Few people do.”

Renault watched as the last remnants of the man he had just buried disappeared before he started back towards the ruin.

_That was a different rite from the ones you’ve used before but it still sent him off._

“I thought I had already explained this: there’s no single right rite, and the words themselves are entirely optional. It’s just something we say to make the deceased less… afraid, and you’d usually make it tailored to the person you’re sending off. Because most of the people I’ve had to send off were worshippers of the Saint, in the past there was never much need to alter what I would say.”

_Didn’t seem to work too well this time._

Renault sighed as he began to climb the stairs.

“That’s something I’m worrying about. He seemed to be more afraid by the implication that I had worked with Nergal in the past, but I was never anybody important or of significant strength to him, so I don’t know why he would tell any of his subordinates about me much less give them the impression that I’d be any sort of threat. Maybe somebody else helped him in the years since I left him and has also, as they say, ‘gone rouge’. They’d have to have been someone more dangerous than me, at least.”

_Ooooooh, scary. So why are we still here?_

“You’ve made it clear that you’re not going to tell me what I need to do.”

_No, I mean why weren’t we sent off?_

“I _know_ that I told you all that I can’t send you off without your explicit and expressed permission.”

_Yeah I’m just giving you a hard time. We all watched you train to become a monk, remember?_

“…Any guesses as to who that man thought I was?”

_Maybe one of the legendary heroes? You do bear a striking resemblance to Elimine._

“I realize that I’m not the most devout Bishop, but I’d still appreciate it if you could tone down with the sacrilegious comments.”

The ghost chuckled.

_I didn’t realize burlap could get ordained._

Renault remained silent for the next few minutes, and eventually the ghost interpreted that as Renault not understanding what they had said.

_Get it? Sacrilegious? Sack, religious?_

“That wasn’t your best work.”

_I’d like to see you do better!_

They had reached the top of the stairs and Renault paused to catch his breath.

“You know I don’t make jokes.”

Renault thought about what the ghost had said for another moment.

“But now that you mention it, maybe Nergal had worked with Bramimond? Or stole some of his research materials?”

According to legend, Bramimond had created the tome _Apocalypse_ on Valor, so maybe that was why Nergal had chosen to set up shop here? But why would a priest be mistaken for the most well-known druid Elibe had ever seen?

_Hey, more importantly, why didn’t you use your rosary?_

“It’s only needed if I’m performing an actual exorcism.”

_What’s the difference?_

“Exorcisms are like an eviction, sending off a ghost is like helping them pack to move to another country.”

_Is that why I can’t possess you? You’ve got some beads that stops ghosts that aren’t you from getting into your body? Were you a landlord before you were a merc?_

“There are other reasons why, and I think allowing you to do so would defeat the purpose of me being here.”

_You’re no fun._

“Believe me, if you -collectively- wanted to assume control I’m sure you could without much effort.”

_Yeah but that means cooperating with everyone else and that’s haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard._

“That’s something for you to sort out on your own. I’m heading in now, so if you want any more banter from me you’re going to be waiting for a while.”

The ghost who had just been speaking to him went quiet, but Renault could almost feel them… pout?

He shook his head, and reentered the building before him.

The torch that Renault had left with Harken remained lit, allowing him to reach the man with relative ease. As he approached the man, Renault noticed that Harken hadn’t moved from the position he was in when Renault had left him, which was worrying but in no way surprising.

Renault extended his hand towards Harken.

“I’m done with what I needed to do, are you ready to go?”

“Who were you talking to?”

Harken didn’t even look up.

Renault had been careless on the return trip and forgot to whisper to the ghost he was speaking to just outside the ruin.

The Church wasn’t fond of bishops sharing this information, there was no point in hiding it now.

“Bishops can see ghosts, and some can converse with them. I’m currently traveling with a few and helping them reach closure before they move on.”

_That’s a pretty bold-faced distortion of the truth._

“And you went out there just to talk to them?”

“No, I was…”

Renault hesitated, but reminded himself that what Harken needed right now wasn’t a liar.

“I was moving the body of someone we thought might have worked for Nergal. Burying him and sending off his spirit. The ghosts I’m traveling with and I talked about who he might have been on the way back.”

Harken remained quiet for some time.

“Was he holding anything?”

“I didn’t search his clothes so I only noticed the Bolting tome in his-”

Renault noticed Harken immediately tense up and paused. He lowered himself to the ground, sitting in front of the terrified man.

“Harken, I don’t… I can’t say I know what he did, but he’s gone. He’s not coming back. You’re safe now. I have some friends that can pick you up and bring you back to the mainland in a few days, but for now we should get you someplace else before the sun sets.”

“Does it matter if…” Harken mumbled, his words trailing off before a coherent thought made it out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch that.”

Harken peeked up from behind his arms and stared at Renault.

His eyes contained a hint of anger.

_You’re losing him, idiot._

“I… shouldn’t have left you here alone.”

Harken didn’t react and Renault averted his gaze.

_Incredibly easy to read as always, Renault. Keep it up and he might start trusting you._

It had been an involuntary action, a reflex in response to shame that Renault had never bothered to try to suppress.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never been good at this whole… priest thing. Do you think you’re good to walk? I think it’s important we get you someplace you can rest.”

Renault turned back to Harken.

“Someplace that isn’t here.”

It was obvious to Renault where he would be able to take Harken and wait out the days it took for Fargus to return, but Renault felt a tinge of worry as he thought about the unknown agenda of the morph he had encountered. The dragon’s ghost seemed benign enough but he couldn’t be sure about the morph.

The dragon’s exact words in reference to the morph didn’t seem to suggest that he was a hostile entity, just that being a magic seal meant the dragon couldn’t continue to speak. Had he run because to him _Renault_ had been a threat? He _had_ chased him for a-

“How far?”

Harken’s words snapped Renault away from his musings.

“Maybe an hour. There’s a fortress to the northeast of here that contains a passageway to an area that should be safe.”

“Should...”

It wasn’t a question as much as it was an expression of disappointment.

“We’re on the Dread Isle. There’s no place on Valor that is completely safe, but Nergal hasn’t yet discovered this cavern and it _should_ be fine for however long it takes Fargus to get here.”

Harken continued to stare at Renault.

“…Okay. I’ll go.”

Renault pushed himself up off the ground and helped Harken to his feet, and, torch in hand, they left the ruin together.

 

* * *

 

The fog had thickened significantly in the few minutes that Renault had spent inside, and he was immediately glad he had a good sense of direction. The torch would help them avoid any unpleasant encounters with the ground -or any errant morphs- but he’d rather not stumble around Dread Isle once the little sunlight that reached this area through the clouds and fog disappeared behind the mountains to the east.

Harken no longer needed Renault’s help to walk, and while he stumbled a bit going down the stairs -Renault there to catch him- he was able to set a good pace and Renault felt his estimation of how long the journey would take had been a little generous. They should make it to the fort within twenty minutes, and the journey through the passage would be no more than ten, so while the sun would have long passed behind the mountains, it would still have been above the horizon by the time they reached the village.

Not that it’d make much of a difference once they got there.

A moment before the stairs faded into the fog, Renault paused, turning back to them.

“Something wrong?”

_Just remembered that you forgot the food, didn’t you?_

“I just realized I left behind the rations, but there’ll be some things to eat at the village we’re heading to.”

Harken seemed unconvinced about something, but Renault couldn’t tell if he found the idea of a hidden village difficult to believe or if he had realized that Renault had noticed something was out of place and was trying to hide it.

The shovel wasn’t where Renault had left it. The morph, who Renault was this close to giving a name so he didn’t have to keep referring to him as _’the morph’_ , probably had taken it, which ostensibly meant he   _had_ intended for Renault to bury the man from before.

But why?

Out of the latent goodness of his heart?

A month ago… no, even a day ago Renault wouldn’t’ve considered it, but now…?

 

Harken remained quiet for the entire trip, smothered by both the heavy fog and by whatever it was he had been forced to experience. It seemed like he had begun to _entertain_ the idea of trusting Renault if the fact that he was following him into the mist to places unknown was anything to go by, but Renault didn’t know if Harken would warm up to the point where he’d be willing to be open with him.

Gaining Harken’s trust wasn’t really a goal, though, and given everything that Harken had gone through Renault wasn’t sure he’d ever deserve to have it. Harken needed help, help Renault probably wasn’t going to be able to give him, but if nothing else he’d die trying.

As they entered the dilapidated -but not quite _ruined_ \- fortress, it occurred to Renault that he didn’t recall the exact path to the hidden passage.

“Would you like to rest for a moment?”

“How much further?”

“We’re about halfway there.”

“Let’s keep going.”

Renault made no reaction to his attempt to stall for time so he would be able to recall something he hadn’t expected to need to remember being completely shut down and lead Harken deeper into the castle, hoping he’d find the passage by sheer luck.

_You forgot where it was, didn’t you?_

Renault mouthed the word ‘yes’, attempting to hide his slowly building panic from Harken.

_You’re as hopeless as always. Take a right down the next corridor._

Renault did as he was told, and found the shovel he had used to dig the grave earlier leaning up against a door at the end of the new hallway.

He found the shovel, and yet another question that he didn’t have an answer for.

_Guess you won’t need our help after all._

Renault walked over to the door and opened it, revealing the downward-sloping tunnel that lead to the village. He raised the torch to better illuminate the passage and took a few steps forwards before he stopped, having noticed that Harken had not continued after him.

“Is it just you?”

“Yes. Er… mostly. There is a ghost that’s chosen to stay there, but beyond them it’ll just be us. I hadn’t been expecting to meet anybody above ground, so I may have to talk to them once we arrive and explain the situation.”

Harken hesitated, but eventually took a few slow steps towards Renault and the two proceeded down the tunnel dug out of the earth.

 

The door at the end of the tunnel was, to Renault’s surprise, completely mechanical, with little more than a deadbolt and a doorknob. He had expected the hidden door to have some sort of magical component as most secret doors in Elibe did these days, but thinking about it a bit more he realized a ‘magic seal’ wouldn’t have been able to operate anything the locked using magic.

Feeling a bit less confident about his intelligence, Renault unlocked and opened the door, letting it swing open slowly so his eyes could dart around the village as it slowly came into view, checking for anything out of place, any sign the morph was still there. His magic wasn’t sealed away but he couldn’t be too safe, especially now that he was responsible for more than just himself.

Satisfied with the perceived security of the village, he stepped into the cavern and held the door open for Harken.

Harken hesitated, his face filled with uncertainty.

Again.

Renault had no problems with waiting. If this village didn’t fit his needs, he’d do what he could to find a better place to wait for Fargus’ return. From where Harken was standing in the passageway, he should be able see that there were buildings within the cavern, so perhaps the strangeness of the situation put him on guard…?

Renault’s thoughts turned to the device Fargus had given him. It would, supposedly, automatically retract once he was within a day away from Renault, but did that mean he should pull it now, when Fargus hadn’t yet had a day to travel away from Renault, or should he wait until a full day had passed? If he pulled it now, would it retract when they first crossed the one-day-away threshold -in this case, as they were heading away from Renault- or would it retract only when they were heading towards him? Fargus probably wouldn’t even expect Renault to be done so soon, so if it was the first situation he might not even be looking at his compass during the brief window that it would point towards him.

He had to get those kids away from the island first, anyhow.

Despite what little Renault knew of what had happened here, there were things they needed to do that shouldn’t be done on Valor.

Renault grimaced, hating how he couldn’t even be upfront with himself about what had happened.

Come to think of it… was Nergal even still alive? It was definitely wishful thinking, but that explosion had to have been large, and if he had been caught off-guard…

 

Harken eventually stepped into the cavern that contained the village. In the long moment it took for Harken to turn his gaze to the false sky above, Renault placed the shovel in the doorway and allowed the door to swing almost all the way shut, giving them two potential exits from the village if a hostile entity found its way here.

_Child of man, why have you brought a stranger here?_

Renault took some small comfort in the knowledge that the dragon no longer considered him a stranger.

“I’ve been addressed, Harken. It’ll just be a moment and then I can help you get situated.”

He turned back to the center of the village and spoke.

“Out of a sense of responsibility. Am I to simply leave others to suffer?”

Renault’s tone was more resolute than usual, surprising both himself and the ghost. Had he done so to seem more in control to Harken than he actually was?

The ghost laughed and Harken shifted uncomfortably, seemingly at only getting half the conversation.

_Well said!_

“It won’t be a problem for us to use this village for a few days, right?”

_I have no problems with you doing so._

Renault waited before he replied, his eyes darting back to the door they had come through.

_Oh, are you concerned about our friend from before? He won’t be returning for some time._

“That’s good to hear,” Renault paused, “Come to think of it, we should do introductions if we’re going to be staying here, right? I know I’ve introduced myself to both of you already, but I’m Renault, a bishop.”

_A clever way of getting me to confess my name, bishop._

The ghost’s tone was not quite cheerful, but maintained a sense of amusement.

_You may call me Astarte._

“Har- ah, I suppose I should let you introduce yourself, eh? The ghost goes by Astarte.”

Renault turned back to Harken to find that his mood had changed from one of complete defeat.

Harken, instead, looked furious.

“Ghosts? You expect me to believe this?! Is this a joke to you!?! Are you messing with me!?!”

“He’s not.”

Harken jumped and took a few steps back as the air in front of him shimmered and Renault realized that for the first time in his life he had heard a ghost’s voice with his own ears.

“Even with a millennia to practice, as the ghost of a dragon I cannot remain partially incorporeal like those of humans-”

As if rehearsed, the air before the two men took on a pinkish hue before condensing into a pink blob roughly three meters in diameter. The bottom half of the ghost slowly became opaque and the clearly defined border between the transparent pink and the solid, almost raw chicken-like pink began to wave up and down, which would have evoked the image of a sommelier swirling a glass of wine had either man bothered to involve themselves with the kind of people from high society who drank for sport. Countless small, white spots appeared on top of the transparent hemisphere and began to move slowly and aimlessly around the surface of the ghost, making the being before them appear like a mix between a diseased ghost pomegranate and liquefied raw poultry within a spherical container.

Renault hadn’t seen anything remotely like in his long life, and from the quiet gasp that escaped Harken’s lips the same could be assumed about him.

“-so I’ve performed the courtesy of doing what I could to avoid alarming my guests. That being said…”

The enormous ghost swooped in towards Harken, stopping before she would have collided with him had she been a physical entity. Harken seemed to have forgotten that the ghost was, in fact, a ghost as he took a step back and lost his balance, falling to the floor in fear.

“Do _not_ test my patience.”

Before Renault knew what he was doing, he had pulled out his rosary and jumped between Harken and Astarte.

“Astarte, please! Harken has every reason to doubt! He’s seen unspeakable horrors and not just come across another person on a deserted isle, but he came across someone like _me_! Why should he trust me when I claim that there is a village underneath this accursed land, one occupied by a ghost? And now he has seen the village, and he has beheld you with his own eyes, so why do you continue-”

“To test you, Renault.”

The ghost inched closer and closer to Renault and his breath caught in his throat as each and every one of the white dots on Astarte’s surface swiveled towards him, as if they were eyes staring him down.

“There are few things on Valor that are capable of escaping my notice, whether I want to witness them or not; I know enough of his story but I know nothing of yours. You’re right; why should either of us trust you? Why should I allow a haunted bishop into the land I’ve watched over for centuries? Why should he believe you have his best interests in mind?”

The ghost backed up a few feet.

“You’ve given me an answer to those questions that I can be satisfied with, so I shall allow the two of you to stay here, and I will allow you to keep that which you’ve taken from me.”

It tilted itself in a way that seemed like it was turning to look behind Renault, though without any static features to its body it was difficult to say for sure.

“And Harken? As long as you remain within the walls of this village, I can ensure your safety. From a dragon to a human, that promise may seem ill intentioned, but…”

The ghost then turned its ‘eyes’ away from both men.

“As odd as it may seem, I do not resent humanity. If anything…”

The dragon faded away before Renault -or Harken, for that matter- could hear them finish that sentence.

_How come dragons are allowed to do all the cool stuff? She gets to pick a form to materialize in, and she can even materialize fully! It’s not fair that some-_

_Renault may roll over and take whatever slander you throw at him but don’t think I’ve forgiven you for the remark you made during the last visit here. I’d strongly suggest you be on your best behavior while within my domain, or you’ll find out the hard way how little patience I have for ungrateful guests._

_Y-yes ma’am!_

Renault extended a hand to Harken and helped him to his feet. The false starlight in the cavern was far brighter than the torchlight he had previously been restricted to, and it finally set in how debilitated Harken was. He was dressed like a mercenary, maybe even a knight, but what little remained of his flesh had taken on a pale color and his grime-covered body was almost entirely skin and bones. It seemed like a miracle that he still had enough strength to stand upright, much less walk more than a few steps.

Just how long had he been kept in that ruin?

How long had he been waiting to be saved?

“There are beds in every house, but would the closest one work for you? You look like you need some rest.”

_No kidding, ace detective._

Harken vacantly looked at Renault, and eventually nodded his assent. Renault lead him to the nearest house, the one with the study that contained the diary that was now in his possession, and showed him where the bedroom was.

“I’ll probably go back to get the rations that I forgot to grab while you sleep, but if you need anything in the meantime, the pantry is stocked with food. If there isn’t anything you like, each house has a different selection.”

Harken opened the door to the bedroom and Renault’s mind began to race, not wanting to leave things at that.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been so quiet… I just… I don’t know what to say, I guess. It’s not that I haven’t gone through something similar to what you have, but…”

_But you were the perpetrator._

The ghosts weren’t wrong.

“But the few answers I’ve found might not be the right answers for you. If you ever want to talk, I’ll always be available, but in the meantime I’ll give you however much space you need.”

Harken stood in the doorway to his temporary bedroom and stared at Renault for a moment before starting to shut the door. He stopped just before closing it all the way, and glanced back towards Renault.

“I appreciate it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Astarte’s appearance is based off of the persona of the same name from Persona: Trinity Soul. Her wiki page is plagued with **major** spoilers so if you’re interested in what I was going for, try google images or an equivalent (she first appears in EP11).
> 
> I think I might have been a bit too hasty in maintagging Kishuna starting with the last chapter, but he’s already starting doing things and he will continue to do things within this fic. I don’t think that counts as spoilers because I’ve been beating you over the head with ‘oooooo this morph is _sooooooo_ mysterious’ and it’s obvious that I’ll _eventually_ be doing something with him, so if you came here because it’s the first time his tag on here has gotten any new content in the past half-decade (oof), it’ll be a little bit before he becomes a _major_ major character.  
> Based off of my own personal tagging policy I probably should throw Aion onto the cameo list but… he’s kinda completely insufferable and I think I won’t be doing that.
> 
> Now that I’ve (for the most part) figured out exactly what I want to do with the remaining arcs of this, I’ve put the chapter total at 15. I’ll adjust it as I get closer to the end since, er… my track record for anticipating how long this fic in particular will take and/or will be sure hasn’t been super great :^U


	8. Redirect; Revisit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up: some brief parts of this chapter are notably more graphic than the rest of this fic so far (and probably everything that's to come). I don't dwell on it after any initial descriptions, but if you're particularly squeamish with regard to depictions of gore and it becomes too much, I'll be putting a summary of anything relevant from the sections that have it at the start of the next chapter.

With Harken now resting in a bed for the first time in Elimine-knows-how-long, Renault had free time for the first time what was likely just as long of a while. While he had ultimately been traveling Valor without knowing his goal for the past month -or was it closer to two months? It might even be three by now…-  he still had at least been _focused_ on wandering aimlessly.

But for the next few days? Renault was limited in the scope of his travels and activities by how far Harken wanted to go, and he was hesitant to drag the gaunt man far from the village without strong reasons to do so. In the short term, Harken needed to rest for his impending sea voyage, but even beyond that every single bit of sleep he could get now was a moment he could spend away from whatever realities he had to face upon waking, and Renault wasn’t going to pull him away from that.

He stepped back out into the cavern and walked towards the house closest to the stairs. With a sigh, he leaned against the wall that faced the center of the village and looked up at the fake stars above his head.

“Astarte, do you have a moment?” Renault whispered, doing what he could to let Harken rest, “I’d like to continue our conversation from before.”

_Before you do that, you should read the letter our friend left you in the study._

“He came back?”

Renault didn’t know what to make of it, much less of the morph clearly no longer still being here.

_He does that often._

“Would I be correct in assuming that he’s not… hostile?”

_Just read the letter._

“Fine, fine…”

He crept back into the study and found a piece of paper on top of the desk, one which hadn’t been there during Renault’s last visit. He picked it up and was pleasantly surprised to see it was written in his native tongue, so Renault read it on the way back to where he had been just moments before.

 

‘Mister Bishop,’ the letter read.

‘Our existences may be incompatible, both with me as a magical seal and, more prominently, in being a morph, but I’d nonetheless like to try to work together with you. Unless I’ve misunderstood the reason why you’ve traveled to Valor, I don’t believe our goals are as opposing as you may have first believed.

‘Nergal still lives, and we both lack the ability to stop him. Together, we still will not be strong enough to face him head-on, but we can still do what we can to weaken his forces. I will be returning to Valor in roughly a week’s time from the explosion I’m certain you heard, and in the meantime you’re welcome to help yourselves to the food I’ve gathered.

‘I hope to speak to you then,

‘Kishuna’

 

“Was there any reason you didn’t call him -Kishuna- by his name?”

_It’s hard for a dragon to pronounce._

“Do you still have vocal organs?”

_I’m allowed to be needlessly cryptic from time to time, aren’t I?_

Renault sighed.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. So he stays here?”

_He’s the one who maintains it. I think it’s a hobby to him, something for him to do._

“Don’t you watch over this cavern? Why wouldn’t that be something you’re certain about?”

_We can’t exactly speak to each other, Renault._

Astarte was right, of course. She was a ghost and Kishuna was a magic seal; she couldn’t be near him without disappearing, and since Kishuna _probably_ wasn’t a bishop, even if she could maintain her form he wouldn’t be able to hear her.

“Yeah that’s… an obstacle the two of you wouldn’t be able to work around. That aside, can I get your input on something here? He wrote ‘help yourselves’, but as far as I’m aware Harken hasn’t seen Kishuna yet. Had he planned for me to find him and bring him here?”

_Kithuna is… well, he’s coming back in a week so you might as well wait to hear it from-_

The ghost paused.

_You might as wait for him to tell you. And don’t you have a certain time-consuming task to attend to?_

“I was going to go retrieve some food we left behind before I took a look at the diary. We have plenty here, but I’d rather not leave a trail for us to be found through.”

_Ah, of course. I won’t get in your way… not that there’s much I can still do along those lines._

“I appreciate it. I plan to be back well before sunrise.”

Renault approached the passage to the outside, its door still propped open by the shovel, but Astarte wasn’t finished.

_Just… just so we’re being honest with each other, while I don’t know much about you, but I didn’t exactly… distrust you._

“Even after what we had talked about last time?”

_Nergal had a way of getting to people’s hearts. Up until recently, I don’t think he had ever done it deliberately._

_Had_. Past tense. Present would have indicated that Astarte was talking about the matter surrounding Lycia, or maybe whatever he had been doing immediately before, but Astarte talked about him almost as if she had known him long ago, well before he had moved to Valor, well before Renault had worked with him in Bern.

Maybe the diary would have answers.

He doubted Astarte would share them freely.

“My choices are still choices I made.”

_I was trying to help you win over your friend. Trust is nothing more than triumph over doubt, so I just highlighted the reasons he had to distrust you._

“I’d rather Harken choose to trust me of his own accord. I’m in no position to stop you from warning him of anything to do with me you might think he’d find relevant, but please don’t toy with him.”

_Very well. How are you going to tell him about your involvement with his current situation?_

Renault was quiet for a moment.

“Would you be able to continue this conversation outside of the village?”

_No._

It had been too much to hope for.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what he needs right now.”

_Your priority is getting him off this island, then? You must trust this friend of yours quite a bit._

“I see no reason in delaying the inevitable. I don’t want to repeat myself, but I don’t know what he needs but I know it’s not here.”

Or that it’s something he could ever give to Harken.

_I wonder if what he needs can still be found in Elibe…_

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Renault looked to the ground and signed, “Is he asleep? I’ll take the chance to get those rations if he is.”

_He is. Don’t except me to spy on him for you often._

“I could have checked on him myself, but I don’t think he’d enjoy being woken up if I did.”

_I understood that, Renault. Go get your food and come back. I don’t know how long he’ll be asleep and I don’t think I’m equipped to calm him down if his dreams are unpleasant._

“That’s…”

Renault had forgotten about the possibility of that.

“I’ll hurry back, then.”

 

* * *

 

The temperamental fog had chosen to remain thicker than pitch and -now that night had fallen- just as dark, so despite his desire to remain as undetectable as possible, Renault was forced to use a torch or risk losing his way completely. Each step had his boots sink just a little bit deeper into the now-soggy ground, eliciting a moist _squick_ from the earth, and each step was further punctuated by the pounding of his heart as the fog messed with his perception of his surroundings.

Was that shadow simply cast by the torch in Renault’s hand, or was it _actually_ something? Was it another unfortunate soul? Was it an errant morph? Was it, perhaps, something worse? Would Nergal have sent Jaffar out in the middle of the night? Had Jaffar survived the explosion?

What was that sound, muffled by the fog? Was it an echo of a noise Renault himself had made, or something else? Was it a wild animal? Did Valor _have_ wild animals?

Had it been two minutes since he had left the fortress, or twenty?

It seemed like, after so long, Dread Isle had finally begun to live up to its name.

_Hey._

_Renault._

“What.”

_Keep your eyes on the prize._

“I’m making an effort.”

_You’re making a fool of yourself, that’s what you’re doing. Turn an eighth-rotation to the right and keep walking._

Renault did as he was told.

“Why?”

_Because we’re no longer responsible for just you._

“Getting help defeats the purpose of this.”

_If anybody is entitled to the right to reward you, whether it be with information or a moment’s reprieve,  it’s us. Your self-loathing schtick is getting old and in the way, so cut it out._

“If it was that easy I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

_Being at peace with yourself wouldn’t absolve you of your responsibilities._

“But it’s a whole lot easier to get someone who feels guilty to listen to you, isn’t it?

_And you think we couldn’t even if you felt not a shred of remorse? You said it yourself: if we tried, we could enter and hijack your body without you being able to put up much of a fight. Maybe not for long enough for you to make it to Valor, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to get a priest excommunicated, and who knows how much easier it would be to give you the few small pushes you’d needed to head to Valor after that._

“Why did you tell me to come here in the first place?”

_We’ve been over this already, Renault._

“I meant why you suddenly shifted from harassing me -no matter how much I deserve it- to telling me what to do, not what you want me to do. Surely that indicated that something had changed?”

_Don’t make me repeat myself._

“If I guess correctly will you inform me?”

_I’ll have to consult with everybody else before I commit to that, but we’ll probably have an answer by the time you get the food. Until then, jerkface._

Just as the ghosts fell silent, the dark exterior of the ruin came into view, and Renault found himself at the southeast corner of the building he had been heading towards. If the ghosts hadn’t intervened, Renault would have completely lost his way, fated to wander aimlessly around Dread Isle until time itself came to a grinding halt as the last of the stars in the sky flickered out, casting all of existence into an eternal winter as whatever lingering heat remained within the world evaporated into the void.

Or at least until the fog cleared.

Whichever came first.

Renault walked to the stairs without noticing anything being disturbed from his last visit, climbed to the top without seeing anything out of place, and entered the ruin and found the food right where it had been left without spying a single sign that anybody may have noticed it.

To describe what Renault felt as ‘relief’ would be a massive overstatement, but he’d always welcome a lack of harbingers of any unwanted surprises. It wasn’t a sign that he _wouldn’t_ ever be surprised, but to not have to spend every moment bracing for an attack that may never come? To not have to spend every second of the day anxious of what may lay beyond the next corner?

It was the closest Renault got to having a chance to relax.

And now that Renault had a moment to rest, he his mind began to wander to the question of if there was anything else he had to do in this ruin before he returned to Harken.

He had thoroughly checked all the rooms except the one Harken had stayed in …and the one immediately before that, which Renault would have been happy to never return to, but if it granted him some insight into what might help Harken…?

That was an ordeal Renault was willing to face.

That was an ordeal Renault _had_ to face.

Renault steeled himself for the olfactory onslaught as he approached the seventh room and entered it with just a moment of hesitation.

It was worse than he remembered.

It had escaped his notice during his previous visit due to his rush to leave the room, but the blood that caked the walls had begun to rot, releasing chemicals that hung heavy in the stagnant air of the room, chemicals that Renault hadn’t smelled in such a high concentration in such a long time.

It occurred to him that the reason why he had balked from the room before was less from a physical aversion to blood -though he was nonetheless repelled by it appearing in such large quantities outside of a body- but more from being so viscerally reminded by a part of his past he wasn’t proud of.

_It smells familiar, doesn’t it?_

Renault could recognize each scent by name, the need to have been familiarized with cadaverine and putrescine and hydrogen sulfide and pure gaseous nitrogen and sulfhemoglobin and a million other bodily chemicals coming from his days as a laboratory assistant.

From his days working for Nergal.

And that information was of little use to him here, as it would be obvious to _anybody_ that people had been killed in this room.

“Yes, regrettably.”

_who…_

As Renault cast light upon the walls, revealing both that the blood had begun to take on a slight green tint as it decomposed and the trails of rotting fat that ran down the walls from where pieces of flesh remained affixed by the now-hardened blood, a new voice spoke. Slowly, Renault was able to feel the faint presence of a new ghost whose aura wasn’t unlike what he had come to expect from those which starved to death, their souls weakened well before their bodies wasted away, but it felt… off.

Instead of being relatively compact like the Renault’s traveling companions, it seemed as if the ghost who had spoken was instead spread thin throughout the room, though it was hard to be certain when he was surrounded by so many other ghosts. Was he just sensing so many weak ghosts in this room that it was that hard to tell where one started and the next ended, or was it something else…?

_Oh, looks like you might have found a new friend!_

“Hello? I’m a wandering priest… if there’s something I can help you with, I’ll do whatever I can.”

_can you get rid of me?_

“If that’s what you’d like, of course.”

The ghost was quiet for a long time.

_it’s so lonely here… will there be people there?_

“I… I don’t know.”

_…is lord elbert there? surely he will be there…_

Renault moved to speak, but caught himself.

Could he really use this poor soul to gather information that might? He physically could, but could he justify it? Could he justify forcing this ghost to linger any longer, in this room that must be filled with so many awful, unbearable memories?

It was a widely held -albeit misguided- belief in Elibe that ghosts relived the moment of their death in perpetuity until they were sent off, placed into some sort of purgatory irregardless of any actual misdeeds they may or may not have committed during their lives. Ghosts _could_ relive that moment, but it was no different from how even into adulthood a child may relive the moment of finding a parent’s body collapsed across their desk, their skin blue and their eyes having rolled far back into their head, struggling frantically to resuscitate with the little training they had received before succumbing to the realization that a part of their life that they had taken for granted was never going to be there again. Traumatic memories tended to stick with people whether they wanted them to or not, and Renault doubted this was a room he’d forget any time soon, so he couldn’t imagine what it would be like for someone who had to experience it while it had been in use.

Renault shook himself out of his thoughts. He had waited too long to reply and on top of the delay in and of itself being rude, the ghost likely had figured out the answer to the question they had posed.

“If it’s alright for me to ask, is he Eliwood’s father? Marquis Pherae?”

_you know eliwood?_

“Not personally. He’s the client of an old friend I ran into here.”

_eliwood followed us? oh no…_

“If it’s any consolation, Eliwood left the island safely. His father… I’m sorry, but he didn’t make it.”

_you’re not to blame… we were foolish to go up against nergal…_

“That’s not-”

Renault let out a long exhale.

“If it’s alright with you, may I make a confession?”

_no… go ahead… there’s not much for me to do anyhow…_

“I… many years ago, I lost a dear friend, and in my attempts to find a way to revive him, I…” Renault took a deep breath, “I started to work with Nergal.”

The ghosts both new and old fell silent as Renault averted his gaze from where he assumed the ghost he was speaking to was.

“A lot of things happened while I worked with him, and I ended up helping him regain power he had lost, and together we began to perfect the process of making morphs. I eventually left, but… I still set him up to be able to do everything that he’s done since.”

Renault looked forward once again, his stance a little less slouched.

“I’m here trying to make up for my past mistakes in whatever ways I can… You’re right about Nergal being a formidable opponent, but… Eliwood and his friends were able to escape him, so perhaps he is not as invincible as either of us have been lead to believe.”

_would you be able to…?_

“No, I’ve… I’ve never been good at magic, but if Eliwood returns to this island, I do everything within my power to make sure he succeeds. I wish I could do more, but…”

_you’re only human, and we’ve all made mistakes. your mistakes were… i didn’t have much left for me back home, but…_

The ghost’s tone turned slightly more somber.

_maybe that would have changed if I had returned from here…_

“I’m sorry…”

_you’re trying to fix what had gone wrong, and you just ended up being a little too late to save me… if you hadn’t helped him, somebody else would have, and it might have been someone else here instead of me… someone would have gotten the short end of the stick, and this time it was me…_

A quiet moment passed.

_i’m growing tired…_

“Would you like to be sent off?”

_if it wouldn’t be too much to ask_

“No, not at all. If there anything you’d like to request, now would be your last chance.”

_hmmmm… if there were any survivors, do what you can to help them…_

“I’ll do what I can to help anybody I find.”

The ghosts words slowed down, growing increasingly tired in tone.

_aion, that horrid man, made us watch, starving us the whole time… as horrible as it had been, i consider myself lucky to have been killed so early on…_

Although Renault expected that to have been the case from Harken’s condition, having it be confirmed was difficult to hear.

“I… it must have been awful.”

_it was._

“Will I be sending just you off? Or are there others? It’s a bit difficult for me to pick up on fainter spirits when,” Renault gestured towards the ghosts surrounding him, “you know.”

_Maybe if you weren’t such a crappy priest-_

“Can you _please_ let me do one of the few things I’m actually capable of doing here? Mock me all you want when I’m taking care of Harken but your commentary isn’t helpful here.”

The ghosts following Renault were silent for a moment, likely taken aback by his unusual forwardness, as was the other ghost in the room.

_there are others… what do you need from them…_

“They only need to communicate that they’d like to move on and actually want it to happen, though I don’t need to hear it. If they’re too weak to materialize at the moment, wanting to move on should be enough.”

_okay… i think we’re all ready..._

“Very well,” he turned to address his own ghosts, “I shouldn’t need to say this, but on the off chance that some of you have started to view me in a sympathetic light you should probably leave the room.”

Renault turned back to the empty room and focused his mind. He pulled out an old, battered book from his pack, one of the few things of his own that he had brought to the island and held it out before himself.

For these men, he wouldn’t cut any corners.

“O Blessed Saint, grant these unfortunate souls the rest they deserve. Grant them the freedom to shed themselves of their ties to this plane and allow each to move on to the next, so they may be there to welcome the lord towards whom their loyalty remains steadfast, even in death.”

_thank you… bishop…_

The air in the room fell still, and Renault was alone once again.

“I haven’t done enough to be worthy of thanks.”

_I thought I told you to stop with the self-pity._

Mostly alone, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readjusted the anticipated chapter count because I failed to do basic math (again) :^U
> 
> Next chapter should come ~~relatively soon~~ eventually so I hope you look forward to it :)


End file.
